WHAT IS MIFEPRISTONE?
Mifepristone is one of two medications used in abortion care and miscarriage management. Since its approval by the FDA over two decades ago, mifepristone has been proven safe and effective for use in the comfort and privacy of your own home. It is safer than Tylenol or Viagra. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association have said that mifepristone can be “potentially life-saving care” in miscarriage management.
WHAT IS GOING ON WITH MEDICATION ABORTION?
For now, mifepristone is available in 35 states and the District of Columbia, although some states have their own restrictions. Access to the medication was at risk nationwide due to a recent U.S. Supreme Court case and continues to be at risk, even after the court rejected that particular challenge.
WHY IS MIFEPRISTONE AT RISK?
In November 2022, an anti-abortion physician’s group known as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) filed a lawsuit in Texas to overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. They picked an area of Texas where they knew they were likely to win their case. A Trump-appointed judge ruled in their favor and revoked the drug’s FDA approval.That decision was quickly blocked and the medication was allowed to stay on the market while the case progressed. After a series of injunctions, lower court rulings, and appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case and issued their ruling in June 2024.
The Supreme Court rejected the AHM’s challenge, so the drug’s FDA approval is safe — for now. While this can be seen as a win at the moment, we know that these challenges to medication abortion are far from over. That’s because of how the court issued their ruling. They didn’t rule on the merits of the case itself, they simply ruled that the AHM didn’t have standing to bring the challenge. In other words, they didn’t rule on the actual substance of the case, they simply said that since the AHM doctors hadn’t been injured by the medication, their case did not belong in the federal courts.
This leaves the door open for anti-abortion extremists to try to ban medication abortion in other ways. One way would be for different plaintiffs to bring similar cases back to the court. And Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the ruling that challengers could also take their concerns to the president and the FDA to try to overturn the medication’s FDA approval, or to Congress by pushing for more laws against medical abortion. Lastly, we also know that anti-abortion extremists would like to use an antiquated law called the Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion medications (they’ve said so in Project 2025, which you can read more about here).
All this means we have more work to do! Judge Kavanaugh also wrote in the ruling that people “may also express their views about abortion and mifepristone to fellow citizens, including in the political and electoral processes…”, which is exactly what we have to do!
Judges and politicians should not be making our personal decisions for us. We can’t count on the current Supreme Court or extremist politicians to protect our reproductive rights, which is why we must vote for judges and lawmakers who will — and get all our friends and family to join us.
