A federal judge in Texas suspended the approval of an abortion drug for at least a week. President Joe Biden says he will fight the decision.
If a Texas federal judge’s ruling goes into effect, commonly used abortion pills will be banned across the United States.
In the United States, a federal judge from the state of Texas has suspended the approval of an abortion drug at the federal level. If the decision becomes final, it would revoke the FDA’s approval of widely used abortion pills throughout the United States.
Judge Matthew Kacsmary too according to the federal authorities have a week to appeal the decision before it takes effect.
Attorney General of the United Statesi Merrick Garland then announced that the Ministry of Justice plans to appeal.
The Biden administration objects
President Joe Biden according to the judge’s decision is an unprecedented step in depriving women of their basic freedoms.
– My administration intends to fight this decision, Biden said in his statement.
According to Biden, when enacted, the decision would make all regulated drugs vulnerable to “these kinds of political, ideological attacks.”
Vice president Horrible Harris according to the Texas judge’s decision threatens women’s rights across the country. Harris also said the decision undermines the FDA’s “science-based, not policy-based” ability to approve safe and effective drugs.
Following the Texas judge’s decision, a federal judge in Washington state ruled in another lawsuit that the drug’s availability must be protected in at least 12 states.
Due to the differing decisions and a possible appeal by the Ministry of Justice, it is believed that the case will move to the US Supreme Court.
Commonly used drug under threat of ban
In a lawsuit in Texas, anti-abortion groups had asked a judge to order the FDA to revoke its more than 20-year-old marketing authorization for mifepristone. It is a drug widely used in the United States, which has been on the market after receiving marketing authorization. The plaintiffs characterized it as a dangerous drug that should never have been licensed.
The mifepristone compound is used as part of a two-agent regimen in medical abortions. More than half of abortions in the United States are performed with mifepristone.
The US abortion rights organization Planned Parenthood commented that the judge’s decision was very harmful. Planned Parenthood runs health clinics that also offer abortion services.
– We should all be outraged that one judge can unilaterally reject medical evidence and overturn FDA approval of a drug that has been used safely and effectively for more than two decades, the organization’s leader Alexis McGill Johnson said.
The availability of the abortion pill in the United States became even more important after the country’s Supreme Court last year overturned an earlier decision that protected the right to abortion at the federal level.
With this, the states are allowed to decide their own abortion laws, and about half of the states have since either almost completely banned, are in the process of banning, or have severely restricted abortions. However, abortion pills could be purchased if needed in states that allowed it or by mail.
Reuters, AFP
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