The use of abortion-inducing drugs has been a source of controversy, especially following the Supreme Court’s
ruling
returning abortion decisions to the states last year. On Wednesday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled
that the Food and Drug Administration must restore the safeguards it had taken away to make the abortion drug mifepristone more accessible.
This signals a brief win for the
pro-life
movement, though the ruling won’t take effect yet and could go to the Supreme Court.
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Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior counsel Erin Hawley argued the case before the 5th Circuit. In a statement, Hawley said:
“The FDA will finally be made to account for the damage it has caused to the health of countless women and girls and the rule of law by unlawfully removing every meaningful safeguard from the chemical abortion drug regimen. This is a significant victory for the doctors and medical associations we represent and, more importantly, the health and safety of women.”
The safeguards the 5th Circuit restored include returning the gestational limit to seven weeks instead of 10, reinstating necessary doctor visits, and reinstating the medical exam after an abortion to check for complications. The Justice Department, which defended the FDA, vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The appeals court’s decision gives the pro-life movement a reason to celebrate cautiously, and the logic of the
93-page ruling
does, too, particularly in the section on the FDA and pregnancy.
Judge James C. Ho, concurring in part and dissenting in part, writes that the FDA approved mifepristone with the understanding that it was a drug that “treated a serious or life-threatening illness.” But, Ho writes, “pregnancy is not an illness.” He goes on to explain the difference between “illness” and “pregnancy” and concludes that since pregnancy is not an illness, “there is accordingly no basis for deferring to the agency. The FDA simply got it wrong.”
Most conservatives have long felt that the FDA approval of the two drugs that work in tandem to induce an abortion, mifepristone and misoprostol, came with serious side effects and possible complications for women. The fact that they were approved under the guise of curing the “illness” of pregnancy is a slap in the face to women who want to be pregnant and know their pregnancy brings a baby into the world, not an illness to be cured.
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According to
some polls
, up to two-thirds of people reject banning the abortion pills in question. The fact that they’re used within the first 10 weeks of gestation seems to sway people who do not believe that a tiny embryo is still an unborn baby.
This is why Ho’s comments on “pregnancy as an illness” as a guise for FDA approval are so powerful: If pregnancy is not an illness, and it is indeed the act of carrying an unborn child, then medication cannot “cure” it, but only to get rid of the unborn baby. To acknowledge that abortion ends life is persuasive, and it demonstrates just how unethical abortion really is.
Nicole Russell (
@russell_nm
) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a mother of four and an opinion columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas.
