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The abortion pill mifepristone will remain temporarily available in the United States, but under stricter rules, following a ruling late Wednesday by a federal appeals court.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, in the southern state of Louisiana, ruled 2-1 in favor of keeping mifepristone available.
According to the ruling, access to that pill it will require three visits to the doctor and will be limited to the first seven weeks of pregnancy, compared to the previous ten.
Mifepristone was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more than two decades ago and is used in more than half of the abortions performed each year in the United States.
Last Friday Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, appointed by former President Donald Trump, annulled the FDA’s approval but the government appealed the magistrate’s decision.
The appeals court said its ruling would stand until the case was fully resolved. The tightening of regulations rolls back restrictions that the FDA had eased in 2016.
The two circuit court judges who voted to increase the restrictions, Kurt Engelhardt and Andrew Oldham, were also Trump appointees. The third, Catharina Haynes, was appointed by former President George W. Bush.
This confrontation over the reproductive rights of women in the United States comes almost a year after the Supreme Court, dominated by conservatives, annulled the historic ruling in the Roe vs. Wade case, which upheld the right to abortion half a century ago. .
President Joe Biden on Tuesday called Kacsmaryk’s sentence “unfair.”
His spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters during the president’s visit to Ireland on Thursday that the administration will continue to fight the ruling in court.
“We believe the law is on our side and we will win,” he said in Dublin.
Jean-Pierre had previously called the ruling an “attack on the authority of the FDA” and noted that it could “open the doors for other drugs to be flagged and denied to people who need them.”
Democrats and activists warn that Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling is part of a broader effort by Republicans to win a nationwide abortion ban.
Shortly after Kacsmaryk’s decision on Friday, a Washington state judge ruled in another case that access to mifepristone must be preserved.
Dueling legal opinions, along with appeals, means that the matter will almost certainly end up before the Supreme Court.
Polls consistently show that a clear majority of Americans support safe abortion access, but conservative groups have tried to limit what was once a statutory right.
Source: Elcomercio
I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.
