3 states pick up abortion pill lawsuit against Food and Drug Administration
Caroline MolloyThree states have picked up a lawsuit previously dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its removal of safety restrictions on abortion drugs.
In June 2023, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision saying the group of pro-life doctors and organizations who filed the original case lacked standing as they could not show they had been harmed by the abortion drug mifepristone’s widespread availability.
The states of Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho argue in the new lawsuit, filed in the same Texas federal court as the original case, that “women should have the in-person care of a doctor when taking high-risk drugs.”
Since the FDA rolled back its regulations, the states wrote in the filing, abortion drugs have been “flooding states like Missouri and Idaho [where abortion is otherwise regulated] and sending women in these states to the emergency room.”
The plaintiffs describe the FDA’s move to deregulate the drug as “reckless,” noting that the FDA’s own label estimates that about 1 in 25 women who take mifepristone “will visit the emergency room.” Though side effects of the drug include severe bleeding, life-threatening infections, and ruptured ectopic pregnancies, abortion providers are no longer required to report nonfatal complications.
