The Mifepristone abortion pill will remain temporarily available in the United Statesbut under stricter rules, following a ruling handed down late Wednesday by a federal appeals court.
A panel of three judges from the appeals court of the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, in the southern state of Louisiana, ruled 2-1 in favor of keeping the mifepristone.
According to the sentence, access to this pill will require three visits to the doctor and will be limited to the first seven weeks of pregnancy, compared to the previous ten.
The dispute over the abortion pill
Mifepristone was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more than two decades ago and is used in more than half of the abortions performed each year in the United States.
The last friday Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, appointed by former President Donald Trump, struck down the FDA’s approval but the government appealed the magistrate’s decision.
The appeals court said its ruling would stand until the case was fully resolved. The tightening of regulations rolls back restrictions that the FDA had eased in 2016.
(You can read: Judge in the US revokes the approval of the abortion pill at the national level)
The two circuit court judges who voted to increase the restrictions, Kurt Engelhardt and Andrew Oldham, were also Trump appointees. The third, Catharina Haynes, was appointed by former President George W. Bush.
This standoff over women’s reproductive rights in the United States comes nearly a year after the conservative-dominated Supreme Court ruled annulled the historic ruling in the Roe vs. Wade case, which upheld the right to abortion half a century ago.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday called Kacsmaryk’s sentence “unfair.” His spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters during the president’s visit to Ireland on Thursday that the administration will continue to fight the ruling in court.
Jean-Pierre had previously called the ruling an “attack on the authority of the FDA” and said it could “open the door for other drugs to be flagged and denied to people who need them.”
(You may be interested in: US Government appeals ruling that prohibits access to the abortion pill)
Democrats and activists warn that Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling is part of a broader effort by Republicans to win a nationwide abortion ban.
(The sentence) could open the doors for other medications to be indicated and denied
Shortly after Kacsmaryk’s decision on Friday, a Washington state judge ruled in another case that access to mifepristone must be preserved.
(Also: The drug laced with animal sedative that the US declared an ’emerging threat’)
Dueling legal opinions, along with appeals, means that the issue will almost certainly end up before the Supreme Court.
Polls consistently show that a clear majority of Americans support safe abortion access, but conservative groups have tried to limit what was once a statutory right.
AFP
#Abortion #pill #remain #stricter #regulations