ALERT: Reproductive healthcare again at mercy of SCOTUS as DOJ weighs in

ALERT: Reproductive healthcare again at mercy of SCOTUS as DOJ weighs in

The Supreme Court has an opportunity to protect an important aspect of reproductive healthcare if they’re willing, as the Department of Justice has reached out to the panel to request that they prevent a Texas order from going into effect and depriving women of access to the abortion drug mifepristone.

A Texas judge ruled to vacate the FDA’s approval of the drug, used in the U.S. since 2000, making it illegal to prescribe for terminating pregnancies in the first several weeks, ripping away one of the best and safest choices pregnant people have for doing so.

The DOJ argues that the ruling has even broader and more detrimental effect, eroding trust in the FDA’s longstanding role in approving medications, and placing the agency in a position of being forced to somehow simultaneously comply with contradicting court orders — one demanding that it alter its labeling and approval of mifepristone, and one ordering it not to do so.

Further, the DOJ argues, the ruling burdens the healthcare systems and patients, by forcing patients who might have received a medication abortion to instead join the line for a surgical one, forcing healthcare providers to divert their working hours to those procedures, and leaving other needs waiting in longer lines.

They’re asking the Supreme Court to put a stay on the entire ruling (after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals put a partial stay in place) on the grounds that it’s a case SCOTUS will likely hear in full at some point, and the DOJ argues that the government’s case (in favor of the drug) is “likely to succeed on the merits.” Reuters reports::

‘To the government’s knowledge, this is the first time any court has abrogated FDA’s conditions on a drug’s approval based on a disagreement with the agency’s judgment about safety – much less done so after those conditions have been in effect for years. And the lower courts reached that unprecedented result only through a series of fundamental errors,’ the Justice Department said in its filing.”

The errors the DOJ is citing include that the ruling accepts the claim that the FDA has not provided adequate records demonstrating the safety of the medication, when in fact, the agency “justified its scientific conclusions in multiple detailed reviews, including a medical review spanning more than 100 pages and assessing dozens of studies and other scientific information.”

This comes at the same time that other attacks on healthcare are being launched around the nation, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signing into law a restrictive abortion ban for his own state.

It’s an opportunity for the same panel that robbed Americans of the reproductive freedoms guaranteed under the Roe v. Wade ruling to do better and protect a vital healthcare need, if they’re willing to place the needs of the populace over an anti-choice agenda.

The full filing can be seen here.

Stephanie Bazzle

Steph Bazzle is a news writer who covers politics and theocracy, always aiming for a world free from extremism and authoritarianism. Follow Steph on Twitter @imjustasteph. Sign up for all of her stories to be delivered to your inbox here: