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On Wednesday, a US federal appeals court placed limitations on a commonly used abortion medication, but the decision will stand while the Supreme Court chooses whether to take the case.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision by a three-judge panel would restrict the use of mifepristone to the first seven weeks of pregnancy rather than the full ten, and forbid its mail-order distribution.
Additionally, it would call for a doctor’s prescription for the abortion pill, which is used in more than half of all abortions in the US.
The medicine will continue to be sold for the time being despite the decision made by the panel of conservative justices, two of whom were chosen by former president Donald Trump and one by former president George W. Bush.
Mifepristone is under attack by anti-abortion organizations who say that despite its lengthy history of use, it is dangerous. The case is the most recent engagement in the conflict over reproductive rights in the US.
The Food and medicine Administration (FDA), which approved the abortion pill in 2000 and increased its accessibility in 2016, according to the appeals court, “failed to address several important concerns about whether the drug would be safe for the women who use it.”
The three judges rebuffed government claims that the FDA should decide whether to permit the use of mifepristone during a hearing in May.
A conservative US District Court judge in Texas made a decision that led to the lawsuit.
The Supreme Court, whose conservatives have a 6-3 majority, took up the case after the 5th Circuit Court overturned a ban on the abortion pill but set access limits.
The 5th Circuit’s most recent decision will likewise be put on hold while the Supreme Court determines whether to consider the case. The Supreme Court temporarily protected access to mifepristone, freezing the decisions made by the lower courts and returning the case to them.
Since it invalidated the constitutional right to the surgery in June of last year, it would be the most important abortion case to be heard by the Supreme Court’s nine members.
Since then, 20 states, largely in the South and the Midwest, have either outright banned abortion or placed access restrictions on it.
”Examples of safety”
The Center for Reproductive Rights stated in response to the 5th Circuit decision that there is “scientific CONSENSUS on the exceptional safety and efficacy of mifepristone.
Over 50% of abortions in the US include the use of medication, according to the report, and it warned that imposing outdated, unscientific restrictions will damage millions of the country’s most vulnerable pregnant people.
The anti-abortion organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s state policy director, Katie Daniel, applauded the court’s ruling.
When it approved Democrats’ careless mail-order abortion program, the FDA disregarded science and its own regulations, Daniel claimed.
“We won’t rest until the FDA and the profit-driven abortion industry are held accountable for the suffering they’ve inflicted on women and girls, as well as the deaths of countless unborn children,” she said.
The FDA estimates that 5.6 million Americans have used it to terminate pregnancies since mifepristone was approved in 2000.
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