WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is bracing for a worst-case scenario if a conservative federal judge rules in favor of a lawsuit to limit access to one of two drugs commonly used to induce medical abortions.
Two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, can be taken by women at home and are used in just over half of US abortions. But that could change quickly with a lawsuit filed by an anti-abortion group in Texas that claims the Food and Drug Administration wrongly approved mifepristone for use more than 23 years ago.
The case is before a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump. The ruling for abortion opponents could immediately kill the sale of the drug, but women still have access to medication abortion with the misoprostol regimen.
Vice President Kamala Harris promised on Friday that the White House will renew efforts to ban the drug, as she gathered a group of nearly a dozen doctors and abortion rights lawyers to discuss a plan to respond to threats to access to medical abortion. .
“There is now a partisan and political attack trying to question the legitimacy of a group of scientists and doctors who have studied the importance of this drug,” Harris said. “Now there is an attempt by politicians to take away from the ability of doctors to prescribe and the ability of people to receive.”
The lawsuit against mifepristone was filed by the Alliance for Defending Freedom, which also participated in the Mississippi case that overturned Roe v. Wade. It’s the latest fallout in the fight over reproductive care that Democratic governments have had to deal with since the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion last year.
Harris has not publicly announced the administration’s plans to respond to the decision to halt the sale of the drug nationwide on Friday.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra was in California on Friday to meet with leaders from Planned Parenthood to talk about access to abortion drugs.
Kristyn Brandi said she told the vice president on Friday that the decision could cause confusion about the accessibility of medication abortions in the U.S. Brandi, who chairs Reproductive Health Physicians, said she had called the New Jersey clinic from him. women ask if medicated abortion is legal in the country.
“That’s really important to communicate to people: medication abortion is not going away,” Brandi said.
He added that Harris expressed support for directly challenging the decision if it shuts down access to mifepristone.
Clinics and telehealth providers have prepared decisions that close access to mifepristone, ordering more doses of misoprostol in order to provide medical abortions with only the drug. They should change the way they counsel patients, telling them that misoprostol-only abortions are slightly less effective and sometimes more painful than abortions performed with the drug.
Abortions using the drug “can be 98% or more effective,” while misoprostol-only abortions are about 95% effective, Melissa Grant, chief operating officer of abortion clinic Carafem, told The Associated Press.
Mifepristone dilates the cervix and blocks the action of the hormone progesterone, which allows pregnancy to continue. Misoprostol causes contractions that empty the uterus. Usually, mifepristone is taken orally first, followed by misoprostol for a day or two.
Studies have shown medication abortions are safe and effective, although the success rate is slightly lower than that performed with an in-clinic procedure.
With the Texas decision pending, dozens of Democratic-controlled states filed their own lawsuits in federal court against the FDA on Thursday in Washington. The lawsuit seeks to make it easier for women to access the drug and says some of the FDA’s requirements for prescribing and dispensing are “burdensome, dangerous and unnecessary.”
When the FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, there were several safety restrictions on its use, including limiting dispensing to specialized clinics and requiring women to take the drug in person. The Biden administration sought to expand access to medication abortions in light of the Supreme Court ruling, with FDA announcements this year expanding access to the pill through retail pharmacies and mail order.
But some restrictions remain, such as the need to be certified by a specialist doctor to prescribe the drug.
Some medical groups have long opposed the requirement, citing the low rate of side effects seen with mifepristone compared to other drugs that do not have certification requirements.
Health writer Matthew Perrone in Washington and national medical writer Lindsey Tanner in Chicago contributed to this report.