Causes.com
| 4.21.23
Supreme Court Preserves Access to Abortion Medication Mifepristone
Do you support the SCOTUS decision? Tell your reps
The Supreme Court has, at least temporarily, allowed Americans to continue accessing abortion medication mifepristone.
The legal battle over whether to reimpose restrictions - including whether the FDA properly approved the drug 20 years ago - will continue.
Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissented.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
Why a focus on abortion medication?
- Since Roe was overturned, over a dozen U.S. states have either banned or heavily restricted abortion. Other states have passed laws and approved ballot measures to safeguard abortion rights. With all these varying rules, anti-abortion activists are now focusing on medication abortion, which can be received through the mail and taken at home.
- Mifepristone is the first of two pills that make up the most popular method for terminating pregnancies. It's responsible for more than half of all abortions in the U.S.
What's the background?
Texas District Court
- The Biden administration and the manufacturer of mifepristone had requested the high court to intervene and halt a ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk earlier this month.
- The Texas-based Kacsmaryk revoked the FDA's 23-year-old approval of mifepristone, claiming the approval process was inadequately expedited, leading to an unsafe drug regimen entering the market. The order was paused for a week, and the administration appealed.
The 5th Circut Court of Appeals
- The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the FDA's original approval of mifepristone last week as the Biden administration appeals, but allowed other parts of Kacsmaryk's decision to take effect, blocking steps the FDA has taken since 2015 to increase access to the drug access.
- The 5th Circuit ruling would prohibit mailing abortion pills and permit only doctors to prescribe them, with additional access obstacles.
Washington State Court
- Concurrently, a separate judge in Washington state ordered the FDA not to modify mifepristone access, but only for 17 states and D.C.
Alliance Defending Freedom
- The Alliance Defending Freedom, a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations, claims that the FDA didn't follow the right steps or properly evaluate safety issues when approving mifepristone in 2000 and in later regulatory actions.
- However, medical experts argue these claims are doubtful, as they overlook years of research and data from numerous studies proving mifepristone to be a safe and effective method for terminating pregnancies.
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A little off topic but it sort of seems Clarence has another judge following his 'style'! Bet you can't guess who!
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/21/politics/judge-kacsmaryk-financial-holdings-abortion-pill/index.html
Always looking for ways to hide the money ... doesn't appear to have any Legal problems, but the 'appearance', well ... from the article ...
"In his 2020 and 2021 annual disclosures, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk wrote that he held between $5 million and $25 million in “common stock” of a company – a significant majority of the judge’s personal wealth. The name of the company he held stock in is redacted, despite the fact that federal law only allows redactions of information that could “endanger” a judge or their family member.
CNN obtained a previous financial disclosure for Kacsmaryk – which is not available online – from 2017, when he was a judicial nominee.
On that unredacted form, Kacsmaryk reported owning about $2.9 million in stock in the Florida-based supermarket company Publix. It’s not clear whether that’s the same holding as the redacted stock, although Publix’s share price had significantly increased by 2020 and 2021 and the company is no longer listed on his more recent disclosures.
Redactions are approved by a judicial committee. The redacted holding accounted for at least 85% of Kacsmaryk’s total reported wealth in 2021, and potentially more.
“The whole point of a disclosure is to explain where you have conflicts,” said Michael Lissner, the executive director of the Free Law Project, a nonprofit that has published judicial disclosures. “If you have stock and you’re not saying what it’s in and it’s this much of your personal wealth, that’s a conflict you have. The public deserves to know.”
In a statement to CNN, Kacsmaryk said the “Administrative Office of the United States Courts approved the redaction after reviewing the relevant rules and applicable threats.”
“It is a private corporation headquartered and operated outside of Texas, outside the Fifth Circuit. It has never been a party in any case in the Northern District of Texas,” Kacsmaryk wrote of the company he holds stock in. “The Clerk’s Office has the name of the entity, actively screens incoming cases, and I would be automatically recused from any cases involving this entity.”
The redaction is the latest example of Kacsmaryk not being fully transparent as a judge and judicial nominee, even as he has become one of the most controversial judges in the country. "
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Just like my Reps.!
Women have the right to healthcare just like men. As creators of life, women should be revered, whether they decide to give birth or not!
Its a dishonest question! All they have dine is make this drug avaikabke on line with no
medical supervision! Its stupid
Ah, heck! It's Texas! cornyn and cruz see no issue with all that dough coming from Harlan Crow, a Texas mega-donor?
Doesn't seem that long ago we were talking about a couple of other Texas billionaires buying Repuglican't politicians for their own purposes!
First Wilkes and Dunn ...
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/07/24/politics/texas-far-right-politics-invs/index.html
And now another Texas billionaire (who apparently has a fetish about Hitler, like another someone we may have heard about!!), who our Texas Reps., cornyn, cruz and crenshaw see NO PROBLEM with the exposed Crow/Thomas 'affair'😂‼️
https://apple.news/AY7aCKhkKR2G1XBpHekjj3g
Right Reps.!
I support this move, but it's still a weak decision by the Court. They should make it clear that either it's up to the states and no federal judge can decide for the whole country, or they don't support the FDA and the whole drug approval process should be scrapped, which would cause chaos
Now we have to wait weeks for the Fifth Circuit to decide... And likely send it back to the Supremes.
I am not happy with our country's abortion policies. I believe in some cases, abortion could be allowed, but these severe abortions like live birth abortions are murder. I would not support or vote for any politician who does.
I think they are on the right track but disagree with the fact they are spending time on it due to a lower court judge that had no true authority to start this mess. I would also like to question the status of any SCOTUS member who has questionable influence problems with their decisions to accept gifts and be a part of questionable influencer groups.
A long time coming I only hope this office has the people to enforce the description it has.
Now we need to reverse the states rights to make women second class citizens. Saying that women living in one state has less rights than women living in another state is no different than saying some states can have slaves while others don't. Women are not truly equal when we have no agency over our own body.
are you afraid of losing targets in 10 or 15 years?
free to carry wapons and forsee to have baby's.
The SCOTUS decision is obviously a stopgap measure and is appreciated and supported. It is ridiculous on its face that the court is dealing with the issue of a single ignorant white male deciding that the FDA doesn't know what it is doing. If Viagra had been the drug in question (and from the available statistics, Viagra is much more deadly than mifapristone), the old white men would be racing to be the first to defend the FDA's authority to approve drugs. But when it comes to controlling women, the old white men in power want nothing more but to move women back to the stone age.
Women should have the right to choose whether they are willing and able to carry and deliver and/or raise a child. No one (including lawmakers) should be able to force a woman to remain pregnant aginst their wishes. Mifepristone is a safe and effective way to terminate a pregnancy in the early stages and should remain available to ALL women in the United States.
Say it's not true? The supreme courts has an ethics problem, on ethics?
THIS IS ONLY TEMPORAY-----FIX it to PERMAMENT!
Abortion should be available everywhere always!
SCOTUS needs to make a hard ruling on this case, preserving the abortion pill for use, and deferring to the drug administration who is in charge of making these decisions.
SCOTUS also needs to handle their own business with Thomas. If they don't, the other two branches need to provide checks!
Keeping it legal and accessible saves lives.
more emphasis given to abortion than gun violence shows how dumbed down people have become
abortion is rarely an easy choice! many causes such as rape, incest, health, fetus viability, poverty, age etc
shame on congress
shame on scotus
But the problem is that this lawsuit never should've been filed in the first place. The Plaintifs don't have standing.
The 3 co-equal branches of government is not working. The Judicial branch is totally isolated from any checks and balances, and needs to be reeled in.
Yes.
I agree with the decision to place an indefinite stay on the 5th Appeals Court's bad decision until the case returns to the Supreme Court. It is simply the right thing to re-establish the rules the FDA had in place before the Texas Federal District Judge screwed everything up.
But...
Sometime likely next year (an election year) this case will be argued before the Supreme Court.
That's what I worry about.
I don't trust the unethical, regressive, misogynostic Supremely Catholic Court...
SCOTUS made the right call last week. Even if two of its more rabid right wing nut jobs were against it.
No one, not politicians, judges, evangelicals or one's next door neighbor should be able to prevent a woman's right to choose. The majority of Americans are in favor of some form of abortion.
Mifepristone accounts for about half of all abortions in this country. I can understand why, it can be obtained discreetly and taken in privacy. Which is what a woman's right to choose and decide what is done with her body is all about.
Mifepristone should remain available - period.
The courts should not be able to roll back the FDA's twenty year old approval of the drug. This could result in other drugs being trageted.
The Texas judge that ruled against mifepristone, is not qualified to undo the FDA's approval.
What we need to do is start looking at how to review some judge's appointments to the Federal Bench. The Texas judge hid some of his right wing writings for the Senate and he has some questionalbe financial issues. These appointments should not be for life and there should be away to remove judges who have been less than transparent about their past.
The court needs to send a clear message that religoius belief does not out weigh reality, or our constitution. Law needs to based in fact, not magic. And no one has the right to force their veiws on others.
Smoking is a personal choice, but abortion is not, even if it protext a women's health?
And the minute they change their minds, throw them all off the bench! No one has any respect for most of those individuals anymore at all!