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Washington (AFP) – The Department of Justice of the United States asked an appeals court this Monday, April 10, to freeze the sentence of a federal judge in Texas that suspends the use of mifepristone, a pill with which more than half of the abortions in the world are performed. country.
“The district court’s extraordinary and unprecedented order should be stayed pending appeal,” the department said in a court filing.
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on Friday struck down the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone, the pill used to perform more than half of the nation’s abortions.
“If it goes into effect, that court’s ruling will frustrate the FDA’s scientific judgment and seriously harm women,” the Justice Department said in its appeal.
“This damage would be felt across the country, since mifepristone is legal for use in all states,” he said.
The Justice Department asked the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to stay Judge Kacsmaryk’s order pending a full appeal.
US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, pledged last week to fight the ruling suspending the use of mifepristone, calling it “an unprecedented step to take away women’s basic liberties and put their health at risk.” health”.
“It’s the next big step toward the national abortion ban that Republican elected representatives have promised to sign into law in the United States,” Biden said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned the ruling Monday as an “attack on the authority of the FDA” and warned that it could “open doors for other drugs to be flagged and denied to people who need them.”
Shortly after the Texas judge issued his decision, a Washington state judge ruled in a separate case that access to mifepristone must be preserved.
District Judge Thomas Rice ruled that mifepristone is “safe and legal” and that the FDA must preserve its access in more than a dozen states.
Dueling legal opinions, along with appeals, means that the matter is almost certain to end up in the Supreme Court.
Last year, the conservative-dominated court struck down the landmark Roe v. Wade, who had enshrined a woman’s right to abortion across the country for half a century.
Mifepristone is one component of a two-drug regimen that can be used in the United States during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
The FDA calculates than 5.6 million Americans they have used it to terminate pregnancies since its approval.
“We will not give in to extremists”
As the sensitive issue simmered in court, governors of states where abortion remains legal after last year’s Supreme Court ruling took steps to protect access to medical abortion.
California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that his state has secured an emergency stockpile of up to two million misoprostol pillswhich is used in combination with mifepristone, but can also be used on its own to induce an abortion.
“We will not give in to extremists who are trying to ban these critical abortion services,” Newsom said. “Medicinal abortion remains legal in California.”
In Massachusetts, Governor Maura Healey announced that the northeastern state had purchased 15,000 doses of mifepristonea reserve sufficient for a year.
More than 250 executives from major pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and senior officials from Novartis, Biogen and Merck, have signed a letter warning that a ruling by a judge with no “scientific background” undermines the FDA’s drug approval authority and “creates uncertainty for the entire biopharmaceutical industry.”
Judge Kacsmaryk’s order came after a coalition of anti-abortion groups sued to freeze the nationwide distribution of mifepristone.
Kacsmaryk, in his ruling, referred to providers of abortion services as “abortionists” and said the drug was used to “kill the unborn human being.”
The judge said the two-drug regimen resulted in “thousands of adverse events suffered by women and girls”, including heavy bleeding and psychological trauma.
But the FDA, researchers and the drugmaker point out that decades of experience have shown the drug to be safe and effective when used as directed.
The FDA had approved the use of the drug 23 years ago.
with AFP
