Demonstration for abortion pills this Friday in front of the Supreme Court in Washington. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS (AFP)
The Supreme Court granted respite this Friday with few trusting the pro-abortion movement in the United States. The same nine judges who overturned federal protections for this right last June in a ruling that broke half a century of precedent in Roe v. Wade (1973) upheld the reasoning of the New Orleans Circuit Court of Appeals while reviewing an A decision A ultraconservative federal judge in Texas attempted to restrict the administration of mifepristone. It’s a popular drug that competes in about half of the abortions in the country and access is fully guaranteed during litigation.
The Washington High Court decision, responding to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and Danco Laboratories, New York-based maker of Mifeprex, its most popular product, resulted in seven votes in favor and two against. And it implies that until the matter is decided, everything will continue as before: mifepristone remains legal up to the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and not, as the interim court claimed, only up to the seventh. It can also be obtained without a prior visit to the doctor and by post.
The verdict came a good five hours before the midnight limit set by the judges last Wednesday. It was the second shift, and it could be interpreted as a symptom of the division that exists on the issue within the Supreme Court, which is made up of six conservative justices after the three appointments former President Donald Trump was able to secure during his only term and three progressives.
The decision ends two weeks of uncertainty, litigation and legal uncertainty. It all began on April 7 when a Texas judge named Matthew Kacsmaryk, a conservative federal judge also appointed by Trump, ordered the city of Amarillo to suspend the administration of mifepristone, prompting a recently formed anti-abortion group, the Alliance for Hippocratic, agreed Medicine, in its complaint with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This group believes that 23 years ago the FDA approved the use of mifepristone, which is often combined with another pill, misoprostol, without adequate medical guarantees.
The first stops the production of progesterone and terminates the pregnancy, while the second serves to empty the patient’s uterus. In these two decades, hundreds of medical studies have concluded that these drugs are safe and have no major contraindications than other widely used drugs.
Kacsmaryk, in his ruling, which comes from a federal judge and affects the whole country, including states that have guaranteed abortion rights, gave a seven-day deadline for the law to come into effect. This deadline was used by the Ministry of Justice, which appealed the verdict. The matter ended up before the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which is based in New Orleans and has jurisdiction over Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. His magistrates were the ones who decided to impose restrictions while investigating the case.
These precautions have brought the Justice Department and the drug company to the Supreme Court, which ruled in their favor this Friday.
The first of these restrictions was a matter of time. When the FDA approved its use in 2000, the deadline for mifepristone administration was set at seven weeks. In 2016, based on scientific evidence, they decided to extend it to 20 weeks. The other two sought to reverse the decision by which the Joe Biden administration made permanent temporary measures during the 2021 pandemic, a time when unnecessary doctor visits have been questioned. After that, it was possible to receive mifepristone by mail and without visiting a doctor. The opposite is in practice an obstacle for many women in a country where it is common for jobs, especially the lowest paid, not to grant leave on medical grounds, or that if they are granted, it is at the expense of the employer salary goes.
The penultimate episode of the abortion wars is a relief for the unions campaigning for women’s reproductive freedom and a setback for the most conservative sectors that have fought for decades in the courts, influencing Supreme Court appointments and in the halls of the US pulling their strings have drawn the Capitol to achieve their goals. This new crusade shows that these sectors saw last year’s triumph as just another stop on their retrograde crusade.
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