A federal appeals court has elected to reverse course on another decision made by a judge in Texas which suspended the FDA approval of a pill that was used in close to half of all abortions but left in its place a few additional restrictions on the use of this pill.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals situated in New Orleans issued a new ruling late Wednesday evening which pulled back a bit on a previous ruling from U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk that put a stop on the FDA approval of mifepristone.
As stated in the new ruling, mifepristone is not allowed to be mailed and it can only be utilized until the seventh week of pregnancy. Last week, a conflicting ruling was issued by U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice who stated that the FDA must still allow the drug to be used in 17 Democratic-led states that had banded together to bring forth a lawsuit regarding these chemical abortions.
Both Judges Kurt Engelhardt and Andrew Oldham, who were originally appointed to the posts by former President Donald Trump, stood in favor of the restrictions while Judge Catharina Haynes, previously appointed by former President George W. Bush, stood against regulating the chemical abortion medication.
The appeals court’s restrictions were tacked on due to the judges not thinking of them to be “critical” because “the nation operated — and mifepristone was administered to millions of women — without them for sixteen years” between the time of the drugs initial approval back in the year 2000 and the changes from the FDA in 2016 to how the drug mifepristone was obtained.
Throughout his explanation about why he chose to vote to suspend approval, Kacsmaryk claimed that the approval had originally relied on studies now found to be shoddy.
“Simply put, FDA built on its already-suspect 2000 Approval by removing even more restrictions related to chemical abortion drugs that were present during the final phase of the investigation. And it did so by relying on studies that included the very conditions FDA refused to adopt,” he stated.
Kacsmaryk’s decision, which ended up being praised quite a bit by a number of pro-life groups but made the Biden administration a bit upset, could end up in front of the Supreme Court, a result that is becoming more likely due to the conflicting decision issued by Rice.
“We are going to continue to fight in the courts, we believe the law is on our side, and we will prevail,” exclaimed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre this week regarding the issue.