Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 13
The same U.S. Supreme Court that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion will hear oral arguments Tuesday over access to mifepristone, a pharmaceutical used in both medication abortion and miscarriage care.
The nine justices will then decide whether to leave access to the drug intact or require the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to revert prescribing instructions to what were in place before 2016.
The court decision will affect the entire country, including states that have sought to shore up access to reproductive rights following the Dobbs ruling less than two years ago.
The Supreme Court opinion, likely not to come until late spring, will land in the middle of a presidential campaign in which Democrats are elevating the question of reproductive rights. The debate is also likely to affect GOP efforts to grow their majority in the U.S. House and flip the Senate red.
“The medication abortion counts for 2023 do not include self-managed medication abortions that take place outside of the formal health care system or abortion medication mailed to people in states with total abortion bans,” the Guttmacher report states. “While there are no comprehensive data on the number of self-managed medication abortions in the United States, evidence suggests they have been increasing in the past several years.”
Dozens of organizations, attorneys general and lawmakers have filed briefs with the Supreme Court seeking to inform the justices’ thinking in the case ahead of Tuesday’s oral arguments.
More than 15 major medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, sought to reinforce the FDA’s determination that mifepristone is safe and effective in their brief.
“Restricting access to mifepristone will not only jeopardize health, but worsen racial and economic inequities and deprive women of the choices that are at the very core of individual autonomy and wellbeing,” the medical organizations wrote.
They noted that “major adverse events occur in less than 0.32% of patients,” and that the “risk of death is almost non-existent.”
About 145 Members of Congress from 36 states urged the court to restrict access to mifepristone in a separate brief filed with the court.
“Since 2016, the FDA has only required adverse events reporting for deaths resulting from chemical abortion drugs; reporting is otherwise voluntary,” the members of Congress wrote, making the argument that reports are not required for injuries or impairment. “This action was not only arbitrary and capricious, but it also raised safety concerns for women seeking chemical abortion drugs.”
Source: Michigan Advance
