12 States Sue F.D.A. Seeking to Remove Special Abortion Pill Restrictions

The suit argues that the rules applying to mifepristone unnecessarily limit patients' access to medical abortion.

On Friday, attorneys general from a dozen Democratic-controlled states sued the Food and Drug Administration, asking a judge to remove special restrictions the federal agency has long enforced to the first of two drugs used in medical abortion.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal district court in Washington state, comes at a time tense in the battle over the legal status of abortion pills, which are used in more than half of abortions in the United States. states. A Texas federal judge is expected to issue an order soon in a case filed by anti-abortion groups that seeks to overturn F.D.A. of the same abortion pill, mifepristone, and to have it removed from the market.

The potential consequences of the Texas case have the reproductive health community on edge. nerves, fearing that the judge, a Trump appointee who is politically conservative and wrote an article criticizing Roe v Wade, could issue an order effectively blocking access to mifepristone across the country. Such a ruling would be immediately appealed, but if ultimately upheld, it would have sweeping implications, affecting states where abortion is legal, not just states where abortion is already restricted.< /p>

The new lawsuit filed by the 12 states does not address the possible outcomes of the Texas case, but does ask that the judge's decision in the Texas case Washington includes orders that would effectively contravene measures that may be imposed by the Texas judge. While the Washington case primarily asks the court to order the F.D.A. to remove a framework of additional restrictions applied to mifepristone, the suit also asks the judge to declare that "the F.D.A.'s approval of mifepristone is legal and valid" and to direct the F.D.A. "to take steps to remove mifepristone from the market or reduce its availability."

Ameet Sarpatwari, an attorney and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said that the timing and content of the trial was strategic.

"It is a legally and politically wise decision to file this lawsuit now," he said. "If you have a federal judge in a jurisdiction saying the approval was legal and actually directing the F.D.A. to take action to restrict access, that would be in exact conflict with what many assume the Texas judge might be doing. , which is effectively overturning the drug's approval."

If two federal rulings conflicted, said Dr. Sarpatwari, an expert on F.D.A. , “which gives the federal government the ability to say, 'Look, I have two courts saying two fundamentally different things, and the best we can do right now is do nothing.' This could either end up landing in the Supreme Court and having preserved access to mifepristone until a High Court ruling, he said.

Kristin Beneski, Washington state's first assistant attorney general, said the new lawsuit "is about protecting and expanding access to medical abortion." care for early termination of pregnancy."

The F.D.A. declined to comment on the new case, saying it does not discuss ongoing litigation.

In Texas lawsuit, anti-abortion groups claim F.D.A. improperly approved mifepristone and ignored safety risks. In a filing in that case, the F.D.A. challenged those claims and said revoking his drug's approval "would cause significant harm, depriving patients of a safe and effective drug that has been on the market for more than two decades."

Friday's filing was led by the attorneys general of Washington and Oregon, who were joined by their counterparts from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware,...