GOP and Democratic attorneys general clash over Texas abortion drug lawsuit
Abigail Adcox
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Over 40 Republican and Democratic state attorneys general have taken sides in a federal lawsuit filed by anti-abortion groups seeking to reverse the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of an abortion drug that is the most commonly used method to terminate a pregnancy.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch led a coalition of 22 Republican attorneys general in filing a brief in support of the lawsuit, arguing that the FDA “undermined the public interest” by allowing “sweeping” access to mifepristone, the first of two abortion-inducing drugs used to terminate a pregnancy through 10 weeks.
Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Letitia James led 22 Democratic attorneys general in opposing the lawsuit, claiming that taking the drug off the market would “drastically reduce access to abortion overall.” The conflicting opinions of attorneys general are representative of the national debate over abortion following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade left regulation of abortion up to states.
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“For two decades, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has acted to establish a nationwide regime of on-demand abortion by licensing sweeping access to chemical abortion drugs — in defiance of federal and state laws protecting life, health, and safety,” Fitch wrote in an amicus brief filed Friday. “This Court’s decisive action is warranted.”
Republican attorneys general for Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming signed on in support of efforts to revoke mifepristone’s approval.
Several medical associations, including the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, as well as four doctors, are claiming in the lawsuit that the FDA went beyond its regulatory authority in approving mifepristone in 2000.
Democratic attorneys general led by James said that limiting access to the abortion medication or pulling it off the market would inundate abortion clinics in states where the procedure is legal because abortion providers would likely be forced to switch to surgical abortions.
“Against this stark backdrop, annulling — or even merely limiting — any of the FDA’s actions relating to medication abortion would result in an even more drastic reduction in abortion access across the entire nation, worsening already dire outcomes, deepening entrenched disparities in access to health care, and placing a potentially unbearable strain on the health care system as a whole,” James wrote in the brief.
Planned Parenthood clinics in San Diego, Riverside, and Imperial counties already saw a 513% increase in demand following the Dobbs decision, with a stark uptick in patients from Arizona seeking abortions in California after many abortion clinics in the state stopped offering the procedure in light of legal uncertainty, the Democratic attorneys general said.
A number of other stakeholders, including anti-abortion groups, medical associations, and lawmakers, also filed briefs in support and opposition to the lawsuit.
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The U.S. district court judge assigned to the case, Matthew Kacsmaryk, could make a decision at any time, though a lawyer for the plaintiffs has said it’s common to hold a hearing, meaning it could be months before a final ruling is issued. The Biden administration is expected to appeal any decision against abortion medication swiftly.