The Supreme Court of the United States gave a break this Thursday to the movement in favor of the right to abortion with a ruling that maintains for the moment unrestricted access to mifepristone, a popular medicine that competes, along with another called misoprostol, in 63% of pregnancy terminations that are practiced in the country.
The unanimous ruling, which was not a surprise to those who followed the arguments at the oral hearing – held in March, the magistrates hinted that they would make a decision along these lines – comes almost two years after the ruling that overturned the precedent of half a century sitting for Roe v. Wade (1973), which ended federal protection of abortion. That ruling opened a new era in the freedom and reproductive health of American women by giving states the power to legislate on the issue: so far, at least 21 have banned or severely restricted it in their territories.
The nine magistrates (three liberals and six conservatives, three of whom Donald Trump named) overturned with this Thursday’s decision a ruling by a New Orleans appeals court that prohibited the distribution of mifepristone by mail. If they had decided otherwise, it would have meant its ban at the federal level, also in those States where the right to abortion is protected.
The decision was made by the judges when they understood that the plaintiffs, an association of anti-abortion Christian doctors created expressly to launch this judicial crusade, they did not meet the requirement, demanded by law, of having suffered sufficient damage in the matter under discussion to be authorized to sue. “To do so,” reads this Thursday’s ruling, “the plaintiff must demonstrate that he suffered or is likely to suffer damage, that the damage was probably caused or will be caused by the defendant, and that the damage would probably be repaired by judicial reparation requested.” The high court considers that this association does not fall into any of those categories.
FDA Vs Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) It has its origin in a lawsuit filed in November 2022 against the Drug Agency (FDA). The AHM chose to launch its judicial war in Amarillo (Texas), confident that Matthew Kacsmaryk, an ultra-conservative Christian judge, would take charge of the case there, and that his decision would later be reviewed by an appeals court, the Fifth Circuit, also with a biased record. to your interests.
The initial objective of the plaintiffs was to prohibit total access to the abortion pill, which, according to the latest data from the Guttmacher Institute, competes with misoprostol in 63% of pregnancy terminations carried out in the United States, a figure that has grown after the repeal of the sentence that overthrew roe. The first drug stops the production of progesterone and interrupts pregnancy; The second causes contractions in the patient and causes the expulsion of the fetus.
The FDA, which approved its use more than 20 years ago, estimates that more than five million women have used it since then and that no more health contraindications have been recorded than other popular drugs, such as ibuprofen.
Kacsmaryk agreed with them on everything in Amarillo, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, only bought one part of the argument: the one that blames FDA decisions in 2016 and 2021, which expanded access to the abortion pill by allowing its prescription via telemedicine and mail order purchase, for an alleged increase in problems derived from that use. more widespread.
Since the end of Roe v. Wade, At least 21 States have banned or severely restricted the right to abortion in the middle of a chaotic map of crossed legislation, popular consultations and court battles. In these territories, which cover more or less half of the country and now encompass the entire South of the United States, women have resorted more than before the mifepristone ruling, to avoid the long and costly trips to other states necessary to be able to access a surgical abortion in clinics that are often overwhelmed by the growing demand of the last two years.
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