Right now, the country is waiting on one judge in Texas to make a ruling. The ruling is supposed to determine whether access to a drug that, as part of a two-step process, causes an abortion will be curtailed. At least, ostensibly, that is what the ruling is about—whether the Food and Drug Administration was wrong to approve this drug when it did so 22 years ago. This ruling will certainly have serious, dramatic effects on access, and therefore on real women’s lived lives. More than half of all abortions are done via mifepristone, the drug whose approval is now in question, along with misoprostol. While it’s possible to offer the same medication abortion with misoprostol alone, it’s more painful for the patient and has a lower success rate. Already there are stories of pharmacies that are afraid to carry and fill orders for these drugs, even when they are prescribed for other reasons—Walgreens, for instance, has stopped offering mifepristone nationwide. There is no question that a ruling in this case against the FDA’s approval will have real, chilling effects on Americans’ access to reproductive care, even in states that responded to the end of Roe v. Wade by attempting to improve access to care.
But this case is not really about whether mifepristone remains accessible, and FDA-approved. What this case is actually about is the same thing every abortion battle over the past five decades has been about: Who has power in America? Indeed, who holds the power and who doesn’t has been the fundamental question about abortion rights ever since they were left out of the Constitution in the first place, because women sure didn’t have any power when it was written. But the mifepristone case is the first one to show us the full amount of havoc that has been wrought on our legal system thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe last June. It’s funny, really, considering all of the hypothetical things yet to emerge that could have exposed the fractures and ruptures that Dobbs caused—a doctor defying the law to serve a patient’s mental health, an inter-state travel ban, an underground abortion clinic. It’s strange that it’s a 22-year-old FDA approval process of a commonly used and incredibly safe drug that seems to be the thing that will break the illusion that Dobbs does not affect all of us. But that’s how this is all shaping up.
Reports from the Texas courtroom today, where Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk spent four hours hearing arguments, indicate that the Trump appointee seemed open to the argument that the FDA did indeed rush the approval of the drug. It’s hard to describe how fundamentally absurd and dishonest these arguments are, but several of my colleagues have tried. I think it’s worth revisiting their points, which help explain why this random district judge has become such a point of focus for the entire freaking country. Merritt Tierce, who wrote one of the most searing and memorable pieces in recent years on the stakes of abortion within a woman’s life, actually read the complaint to understand what the arguments were. Not only are the anti-abortion groups at the center of this case arguing that the FDA “rushed” when it approved a drug that was already approved in Europe following a four-year process—and now two decades later has been shown to have a safety record that puts it on par with Tylenol. They are also claiming that doctors are harmed by this drug because when it malfunctions (again, at a rate comparable to Tylenol) it distracts them from their current patients, and that OB-GYNs specifically are harmed by the drug because when abortions happen, it denies these doctors of money-making opportunities. Seriously.
Source: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/03/ignore-judge-matthew-kacsmaryk-abortion-pill-ruling.html