Republicans on Wednesday renewed their nationwide attack on abortion pills in a new complaint filed against the Food and Drug Administration.
The amended complaint, filed by attorneys general from Kansas, Missouri and Idaho, is a follow-up to the
FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case that the Supreme Court
ruled on this summer. The state attorneys general, as well as previous plaintiffs, seek to significantly roll back access to mifepristone, one of the two drugs that’s been widely and safely used in medication abortion since the FDA first approved it in 2000.
Although the Supreme Court
rejected the previous plaintiffs on standing, the high court remanded the case back to a Texas federal court overseen by one of the most notorious anti-abortion judges in the country. The ruling was a relief for abortion rights advocates at the time, but the decision effectively punted the issue of whether mifepristone access should be left as is or further restricted. The move signaled to the country that the conservative-majority Supreme Court is open to litigating future attacks on abortion pills — and this week’s amended complaint is the future assault many legal experts warned about this summer.
claiming that the drug is “dangerous” and poses a “high risk” to patients. The suit also seeks to ban mifepristone for minors and only make the pill available until seven weeks of pregnancy instead of 10. All of this is argued with brazen anti-abortion rhetoric and very little scientific evidence to back up the claims that they are “protecting” women’s health. Several of the studies cited in the complaint have actually been retracted for using misleading data and having close ties to anti-abortion groups.
The Republican officials’ main goal in the amended complaint is to ban the shipping of medication abortion by invoking
the Comstock Act, a 150-year-old law that criminalizes sending “obscene” materials in the mail, including anything “intended for producing abortion.”
Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas brought up the Comstock Act
several times during oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. Their insistence signaled, at the very least, that they’re willing to engage with the argument and, at most, indicates that they agree Comstock should be enforced. Their questions at the time foreshadowed that they may side with future plaintiffs who make this argument with better standing.
“In an election where Americans have made it so clear where they are on abortion, these extremists continue to go against the will of the people. Whether through the Courts or the White House, MAGA
Republicans are hell-bent on banning abortion,”
By piggybacking onto the original lawsuit, the Republican officials are able to file their complaint in Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s Texas courtroom. Kacsmaryk, a far-right Trump appointee
well known for his anti-abortion views, is the federal judge who
ruled last year that the FDA unlawfully approved mifepristone when it first went to market over two decades ago. Both Kacsmaryk and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are likely to side with the anti-abortion Republican officials.
Attorneys general from three Republican states filed an amended complaint to the mifepristone case that the Supreme Court rejected over the summer.
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