A federal appeals court decision published on Wednesday that won’t take effect until the Supreme Court weighs in would prohibit mail-order access to a medication used in the most popular kind of abortion in the United States.
Abortion rights campaigners argued the result poses a serious threat to the availability of abortions
Three judges’ judgment on the Fifth U.S. The New Orleans Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a portion of a lower court decision that would have withdrawn mifepristone’s 23-year-old FDA approval. However, it did not change the parts of the decision that would have put a halt to the drug’s mail-order availability, limited its use to the seventh rather than the tenth week of pregnancy, and mandated that it only be used in a doctor’s office, article from ABC 7.
Because the Supreme Court earlier intervened to keep the medicine accessible throughout the legal dispute, such limitations won’t go into force immediately away.
The panel’s decision would undo the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 easing of some requirements for drug administration.
The administration of President Joe Biden announced that it would file an appeal, with Vice President Kamala Harris criticizing the potential impact on the right to an abortion as well as the accessibility of other pharmaceuticals.
Following the Supreme Court decision last year that reversed Roe v. Wade and the general right to abortion, abortion rights campaigners argued the result poses a serious threat to the availability of abortions.
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FDA is expected to monitor medications on the market
Abortion opponents applauded the decision, though they, too, may appeal to ask that the FDA’s clearance of the medicine be completely revoked.
In a report from Alaska Beacon, Alliance Defending Freedom, the nonprofit that brought the Texas complaint, said Erin Hawley that her client had not yet chosen whether to appeal to the Supreme Court in an effort to have the FDA’s full approval of mifepristone withdrawn. The Mississippi case that resulted in the Supreme Court decision that permitted states to outlaw abortion in June 2002 also featured the conservative Christian legal organization.
The Associated Press sent an email requesting comment to a lawyer for drugmaker Danco Laboratories, which argued in support of upholding the FDA clearance and changes, but the lawyer did not reply. The drugmaker GenBioPro, which was not a party to the litigation, stated that the decision would maintain the availability of its generic mifepristone, subject to the limitations.
There is hardly any precedence for a U.S. court to reverse the FDA’s determination that a medicine is both safe and effective. The FDA is expected to monitor medications on the market, analyze developing risks, and take action to protect American patients, even though new drug safety issues frequently surface after FDA clearance. More over a century ago, Congress transferred that authority from the courts to the FDA.
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