OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has given an administrative stay on a Texas court ruling on the abortion medication mifepristone, keeping the drug legal, for now.
The stay will last until the end of the day on Wednesday, April 19 as the Supreme Court has more time to weigh the case, ABC News reported.
The Justice Department had asked the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency stay of an appeals court ruling that would sharply restrict access to the widely-used abortion medication mifepristone. The restrictions were set to take effect early Saturday morning.
On behalf of the FDA, DOJ asked the court to impose an immediate administrative stay of the 5th Circuit’s abortion pill decision — to preserve the status quo while the justices consider the application — but to ultimately stay the ruling pending appeal.
“If allowed to take effect, the lower courts’ orders would upend the regulatory regime for mifepristone, with sweeping consequences for the pharmaceutical industry, women who need access to the drug, and FDA’s ability to implement its statutory authority,” the Department of Justice said.
“Regulated entities are trying to discern their legal duties and urgently demanding guidance. FDA has spent the last week first grappling with the implications of the district court’s order, then racing to untangle the different and enormously more complicated issues raised by the Fifth Circuit’s decision. And in the meantime, another district court has enjoined FDA from doing anything to change the conditions on the distribution of mifepristone in 17 States and the District of Columbia — which means that FDA risks contempt if it takes action to permit the marketing of mifepristone in a manner consistent with the Fifth Circuit’s order. This Court should put a stop to that untenable situation by staying the district court’s order in full,” it said.
The administration said that the decision by the Texas court is “the first time any court has abrogated FDA’s conditions on a drug’s approval based on a disagreement with the agency’s judgment about safety — much less done so after those conditions have been in effect for years.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre weighed in on the decision on Friday.
“For now, mifepristone remains available and approved for safe and effective use,” she said.
“The President and his Administration continue to stand by FDA’s evidence-based approval of mifepristone,” she said, “and we will continue to support the FDA’s independent, expert authority to review, approve, and regulate a wide range of prescription drugs.”
But the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case, Alliance Defending Freedom, said the court’s decision was “standard operating procedure.”
“It gives the court sufficient time to consider the parties’ arguments before ruling,” attorney Erin Hawley said. “We look forward to explaining why the FDA has not met its heavy burden to pause the parts of the district court’s decision that restore the critical safeguards for women and girls that were unlawfully removed by the FDA.”
A Republican lawmaker appears to have joined with Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in calling on the Biden administration to ignore a federal judge’s ruling regarding a widely used abortion pill.
Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina expressed her disagreement with the Texas judge who stopped the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from approving the chemical abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol during an interview on “CNN This Morning” on Monday.
Mace criticized U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s decision to halt the approval of the drugs, saying that he made a mistake. A previous abortion advocate, she also argued that the FDA should ignore the judge’s ruling after the judge on Friday granted a preliminary injunction on the use of the drugs and ordered the reversal of their approval by the FDA.
“In fact, when you look at the court case and the ruling here the judge used an act or a law from the 1800s that was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1983, over one hundred years later, roughly, that that law was unconstitutional,” Mace said. “This is an FDA-approved drug. Whether you agree with its usage or not, that’s not your decision. That is the FDA’s decision.”
Republican @NancyMace says she believes the FDA should ignore the Texas judge’s ruling. “This is an FDA approved drug. Whether you agree with its usage or not, that's not your decision. That is the FDA’s decision.” pic.twitter.com/wGJBunurcL
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) April 10, 2023
“A judge cited the Comstock Act from 1873, which was ruled unconstitutional by SCOTUS in 1983, to block a @US_FDA approved drug,” Mace also noted on her official Twitter account Monday. “Whether you agree with its usage or not, that’s not your decision. It is the FDA’s decision. Women are watching, and they deserve better.”
A judge cited the Comstock Act from 1873, which was ruled unconstitutional by SCOTUS in 1983, to block a @US_FDA approved drug. Whether you agree with its usage or not, that's not your decision. It is the FDA’s decision. Women are watching, and they deserve better.
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) April 10, 2023
According to the Daily Caller, Kacsmaryk noted in his decision that the plaintiffs who are suing the FDA regarding dangers of using the chemical abortion pills have presented “credibly alleged past and future harm” by way of the FDA’s approval of the drugs. He further noted that even the FDA itself had expressed “serious reservations” regarding the drugs but went ahead and approved them nonetheless.
“In September 2000, FDA abandoned its safety proposals and acquiesced to the objections of the Population Council and Danco,” Kacsmaryk wrote. “Despite its ‘serious reservations’ about mifepristone’s safety, FDA approved a regimen that relied on a self-certification that a prescribing physician has the ability to diagnose ectopic pregnancies.”
Mace joins Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who also called on the administration to ignore the judge’s ruling.
“I believe that the Biden administration should ignore this ruling,” she told CNN over the weekend before saying “deeply partisan” judges have “engaged in unprecedented and dramatic erosion of the legitimacy of the courts.”
“The interesting thing when it comes to a ruling is that it relies on enforcement,” she said. “And it is up to the Biden administration to enforce, to choose whether or not to enforce a ruling.”
