This refers to the double pill mifepristone/misoprostol, which has been administered around 5.6 million times in the United States since 2000 and which has so far enabled an officially approved medical abortion up to the tenth week of pregnancy and which doctors have largely classified as harmless.
Until now, women have not had to go to a doctor’s office to get the drug. It will be sent following telephone consultation or video telephony. According to the FDA, complications were recorded in 1,500 cases without a demonstrable connection to the drug being established.
Argumentation without a neutral basis
A right-wing conservative federal judge appointed by Donald Trump in Amarillo, Texas, has now risen to become the flag-bearer of the minority that wants abortions to be completely prohibited in the United States.
In his ban order, Matthew Kacsmaryk made himself the censor of the Supreme Drug Administration; devoid of any technical expertise. The FDA approved the pill over 20 years ago following extensive testing. According to the government in Washington, his 60-page argument, according to which mifepristone poses considerable risks, is almost identical in its activist diction to initiatives by anti-abortion organizations such as the Guttmacher Institute.
Curious: At the same time, a federal judge in the democratically governed state of Washington had decided, contrary to Kacsmaryk, that mifepristone must continue to be available in around 20 states.
Emergency supplies for women
In order to ensure the care of women seeking help, for whom medical abortions are almost without exception prohibited by regional laws following the sixth week in well over 50 percent of the states, the responsible governors in California, New York, Massachusetts and Michigan have Emergency stocks of said abortion pills in the millions.
Mifepristone, known in Germany as Mifegyne, inhibits the hormonal effect of progesterone, which maintains pregnancy. This opens the cervix. The embryo detaches from the uterus. Misoprostol, taken a few days later, causes the uterus to contract. Similar to a miscarriage, the pregnancy tissue is shed.
Because Judge Kacsmaryk only had a few days to appeal, the Justice Department in Washington responded immediately. Secretary Merrick Garland appealed to the New Orleans Circuit Court of Appeals to request that the ban be lifted.
Prescription prohibited from the seventh week
There it has now been provisionally decided that the pill may continue to be prescribed with restrictions until final legal clarification. But: Women have to go to the doctor personally for this. And following the seventh week of pregnancy, the drug is prohibited.
Justice Minister Garland sees this as an unreasonable complication compared to previous practice. He also considers the new time limit to be arbitrary. The Democrat has therefore urged the Supreme Court in Washington to make an urgent decision. The final dispute settlement authority has received a nominal conservative list of 6:3 votes due to the selection of personnel in the presidency of Donald Trump.
It is unclear how the body, which has recently suffered a significant loss of credibility, will decide, but it may have a significant impact on the political mood ahead of the 2024 presidential elections. A large majority of the population has already rejected the verdict from last summer. This would make the US a patchwork quilt. In many regions there is a de facto ban on abortion. In others, abortion is still legal.
Poorer women can’t afford that
This has led to abortion tourism for months. Socially disadvantaged women in particular, often Afro-American women, cannot afford it. They are, say trade associations, dependent on the mailing of the abortion pill. More than 70 percent of Americans reject restrictions passed by a 2-1 vote in the New Orleans Circuit Court of Appeals.
It is also regarding the approval process of the FDA. 400 top representatives of American pharmaceutical and biotech companies have vehemently warned that provincial judge Kacsmaryk’s decision might set a precedent. The approval of medicines should never be subject to the religious and ideological views of individual judges. If the industry can no longer rely on the legal certainty of the FDA approval processes, research in the health sector as a whole is at risk.
For Republicans, the issue is extremely dangerous. Abortion restrictions cost her important votes in last fall’s midterm congressional elections. Just recently, a conservative judge candidate for the regional constitutional court in the important state of Wisconsin lost to a democratic pro-abortion candidate.
Decision can cost votes
The next victim might be Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump’s rival for the 2024 presidential nomination just signed legislation criminalizing abortions following the sixth week in the sunshine state. “If he wins the candidacy,” say analysts in Washington, “the penalty will follow in the 2024 election.”
