The ruling gives Biden’s legal representatives a one-week period to appeal the decision.
Photo: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images
WASHINGTON – A federal judge in Texas issued a ruling Friday revoking the nationwide approval of the abortion pill mifespristone.
Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk today ordered that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the drug in 2000 be rescinded.
The ruling, however, gives the legal representatives of the Joe Biden government a period of one week to appeal the decision.
In the court text, the judge alleges that the FDA violated due process in approving mifepristone and failed to take into account the drug’s “negative impact” on the health of people who take it.
“The FDA completely failed to address an important aspect of the problem by omitting any evaluation of the drug’s psychological effects or an evaluation of the drug’s long-term medical consequences,” Judge Kacsmaryk wrote in the document.
The FDA gave mifepristone its approval as an abortion method in 2000.. Along with misoprostol, the two drugs are known as the “abortion pill” or medical abortion.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who has championed the cause of reproductive rights in the Biden administration, said the court decision sets a “dangerous precedent.”
“It is contrary to good public policy to allow courts and politicians to tell the FDA what to do”Harris told reporters in Tennessee, according to US media.
Planned Parenthood, the largest network of reproductive services clinics in the US, rejected the ruling in a statement, saying it is an “unprecedented and deeply damaging measure.”
“Today’s decision by a judge in Texas to block FDA approval of mifepristone is outrageous and reveals how the court system is being used as a weapon to further restrict abortion nationwide,” said the president of the organization in a statement.
For its part, the conservative organization Alliance Defending Freedom, which filed the lawsuit from which this ruling emanates, celebrated the measure as a “important victory” for doctors and medical associations who opposed FDA approval.
“By illegally approving dangerous abortion drugs, the FDA has put women and girls at risk and it is time the agency is held accountable for its reckless actions,” the organization said in a statement.
Since the US Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade, who protected abortion access nationwide in June of last year, the use of these two pills has increased, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute.
According to the report of this organizationmedical abortions corresponded in 2022 to 54% of all abortions in the country.
Keep reading:
• Wyoming becomes the first state to ban abortion pills
• In Idaho, those who help minors to abort or obtain abortion pills will be penalized with jail.
• Utah bans new licenses for abortion clinics and forces existing ones to close before the end of the year
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