Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration – The Next Dobbs?
Whispers of a case bigger than Dobbs have been trickling through the pro-life community. But what could be bigger than overturning the greatest stain on our nation? One which strikes at the heart of most abortions nationwide: chemical abortions. Just last week, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued an order to halt the approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed this lawsuit on behalf of doctors and medical associations against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their unlawful and unsafe regulations (or lack thereof) surrounding mifepristone. Shortly after this decision, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington issued an order directing the FDA not to make any changes to its approval of mifepristone, as it relates to seventeen left-leaning states and the District of Columbia involved in that case. This clash creates a potential road to the U.S. Supreme Court for a resolution.
ADF plainly laid out the corruption in their 113-page complaint, painting a clear picture of intentional wrongdoing from the FDA’s approval and deregulation of chemical abortions and the devasting ramifications it has had on women and girls. Starting in 2000 with then-President Clinton pushing the FDA to approve it before the election, resulting in it being “fast-tracked” despite not being legally qualified for this path. Fast-tracking a drug requires it to offer a “meaningful therapeutic benefit” to a “serious or life-threatening illness.” An illness pregnancy most certainly is not and there’s no world in which inducing a miscarriage and chemically starving an unborn child to death could be considered a therapeutic benefit.
Continuing in the path of reckless misconduct, in 2016, the FDA made several dangerous decisions. They removed the requirement that only doctors administer the pills, increased the dosage, increased the gestational age at which a woman could abort her child from 7-weeks to 10-weeks gestation, and removed the requirement of 3 clinical visits to just one, allowed for a repeat dose if the chemical abortion was incomplete and removed the requirement for physicians to report all nonfatal adverse events. The justification the FDA raises for this behavior is biased, arrogant, and in flagrant disregard of the law and its duties. To further exacerbate the situation, the FDA allowed for telehealth abortions in 2021, citing COVID-19concerns, and —allowing abortion drugs to be delivered to patients by mail.
Significantly, chemical abortions are equally, if not more traumatic than late-term abortions. Women are being gaslit to believe this is a simple process and virtually painless. When in fact it leaves them alone, in agony, having their abortion at home and facing the graphic and heart-wrenching aftermath of passing their child. With the FDA’s new regulations that allow telehealth appointments for chemical abortions, the door is wide open for abusers, sex traffickers, and others to get their hands on abortion pills and use them on women against their will. Moreover, with virtual appointments and less oversight, no ultrasound will be performed to confirm that a woman is within the timeframe to receive an abortion pill, or even pregnant. They’re simply taking her word for it. Moreover, without seeing the woman in person afterward, there is now no way for the abortionist to know for sure that it worked.
This lawsuit sought to bring the FDA to heel, forcing it to face the decades-long path of corruption, arrogant flaunting of the law, and reckless endangerment of patients. Many lives have been lost in the process, both of mother and child. The suit asks the court to hold unlawful, set aside, and vacate each of the reckless decisions the FDA made since its botched approval in 2000 to its reckless allowance of telehealth abortions.
In short, the FDA made a mess of things as it bulldozed the process in an eager attempt to put to market a dangerous drug that would significantly increase abortions and abortion access. This is far from a “pro-woman” stance. It ends the life of the unborn child and greatly increases the risk of death of the mother if not long-term health effects. For minors, the effects of this drug haven’t even been properly studied. Yet chemical abortions remain the leading method to end unborn life across the country. However, with the contradictory ruling from Washington, the road ahead remains unclear.
