Mifepristone

Here in the United States, a federal appeals court heard arguments in a case about abortion drugs yesterday.

Under the Biden administration, the Food and Drug Administration made the abortion drug Mifepristone more accessible through the mail.

Previously, an in-person visit to a doctor was required.

The state of Louisiana is now challenging these changes in court.

Just the News reports the Fifth Circuit panel signals it may not be able to halt mail order abortion pills despite the FDA's own safety data gap.

Louisiana is suffering 1,000 illegal abortions per month through the mail order Mifepristone by the estimate of Abortion Rights Society of Family Planning.

And the state claims that an emergency room visit rate of 4% before the mail order prescribing and 11% after.

The FDA stopped requiring prescribers to report non-fatal serious adverse events back in 2016.

So abortion is kind of receding as a leading issue for voters this fall, obviously in favor of affordability.

But there's some still pretty epic fights raging, particularly over the abortion pill Mifepristone and whether it should remain available via telehealth.

That's a change made by the Food and Drug Administration during the Biden administration during the pandemic that was later made permanent.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court in New Orleans heard oral arguments in a case brought by Louisiana charging that the FDA policy undermines its state's ban and should be rolled back.

You know, we're in this position where the FDA is defending an abortion policy put in place by the former Democratic administration there.

in an unusual spot.

We still have the, you know, review of Mifepristone happening at FDA that could, you know, decide something on the safety.

We don't know yet, um, depending on what it is that they're going to look for.

The state argues the Biden-era change skipped an adequate safety review and undercuts Louisiana's abortion ban.

The state has indicted out-of-state doctors for prescribing Mifepristone to Louisiana residents.

The FDA is currently reviewing safety claims about the drug.

And the U.S. Treasury says banks and other financial institutions have flagged billions of dollars in suspicious transactions.

Transcript from the Daily Wire.

But Mifepristone has been a big battle.

And the question that is basically before the courts today is this.

Will federal courts allow the rights of red states to enforce bans to override the rights of blue states to protect access? Now, that's the way Politico wrote the headline yesterday.

But essentially, that's the battle.

It is a red and blue battle.

And who are they going to listen to and what are they going to allow? Because at the end of the day, Mifepristone use is, well, it's very common.

But women are not safer and babies are still dying.

Yeah.

It was a prayer conference and a time to intercede on this issue of the cross-border prescribing and sale of abortion pills, the RU486 pill, I believe, in particular.

And we know that Liz Murrell's Solicitor General and, I think, Assistant Solicitor General are arguing that case this morning in district court, I I think Fifth Circuit District Court in New Orleans.

So also prayers, prayers up for that.