Back on the Pill: Abortion News Shifts to Case on Mifepristone

Toplines & Key Facts: 

• Medication abortion drug Mifepristone is on the Supreme Court’s docket
• This case was filed in Texas, and will be decided in summer 2024
• Texas’ own Supreme Court also making abortion news
• Loudmouth U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has no comments, dodges press Qs

National Abortion News

Once again, Texas is at the center of the national fight for abortion rights. On Dec. 11 the Supreme Court stated it would take the case, U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (a recently formed coalition of anti-abortion national medical associations and doctors) to be decided in July of 2024. Filed by a MAGA extremist district judge in Amarillo, this case challenges the FDA’s approval of post-2016 actions that relaxed regulations on the medication abortion Mifepristone. Danco Laboratories, the producer of the drug under the brand name Mifeprex, is also included in the suit with a companion appeal. 

Mifepristone is the first part of a two-step medication abortion regimen, followed by taking Misoprostol. The former blocks progesterone, which prevents a pregnancy from progressing, and the latter finishes the process by emptying the uterus. Since it was approved for distribution more than 20 years ago in 2000, it accounts for half of medication abortions. 

We cannot stress enough how safe it is to use this widely-used and cost-efficient drug, with .4% risk of major complications while achieving 99.6% effectiveness in terminating a pregnancy. There is less risk of complications compared to a procedural abortion, childbirth, and even Tylenol. If the Court decides against the FDA, outdated restrictions would leave very little room for access to medication abortions as effective as Mifeprex.

“Abortion pills have been used safely in the U.S. for more than 20 years, and they are more important than ever in this post-Roe landscape. That is precisely why the anti-abortion movement is attacking them.” 

— Nancy Northup, Center for Reproductive Rights

Texas Base for Anti-Abortion Movement

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is based in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and is widely regarded as the most conservative circuit. Because of them, the Supreme Court took up this case, and many other controversial cases like Dobbs v. Jackson. It was a strategic move to file with a sympathetic judge in Amarillo so this case could skyrocket through the Fifth and to the Supreme Court, rigged with conservative judges all the way. 

Blame Trump, as all this is only possible because he nominated 6 far-right federal judges in the Fifth Circuit; as well as the former religious conservative advocate and now U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk who first ruled against Mifepristone’s approval and regulations. However, presidential nominations are only the first part of appointing a judge, the Senate also confirms. 

The confirmation process for judges also changed. First, Democrats reduced the vote threshold from 60 to 51 Senators required for presidential nominations. Then in 2017, Republicans did the same for Supreme Court nominations. Before these moves, most appointees were more centrist, and after, they matched with the ideological supermajority and had backgrounds in politics instead of the usual private practices or judgeships. For this case, this means more conservative hands on it and a decision that could favor the anti-abortion movement.

(No) Comments from Cruz

This news comes in the wake of several cases from the Texas Supreme Court garnering national attention, involving procedural abortions. Since Mifepristone is banned in Texas, as well as other states, this type of abortion is extra important as access is reduced here. One of the aforementioned cases involves Kate Cox: a pregnant Texan who was approved, then denied, for a temporary restraining order to Texas’ extreme abortion bans. She left the state for her abortion before our High Court made its final decision, but they ultimately ruled against “her life, health, and fertility.” 

Surprisingly, Worst Texan (dis)honoree— always with something outlandish and offensive to say — has no comment. Ted Cruz repeated that he would not weigh in on the matter, even after being asked three times. He’s put out some of the most extreme comments and legislation against abortion, but not now, when our state’s highest court is debating on the topic. 

Since he won’t say it, this decision is unpopular and abortion will be on the ballot in 2024, so his silence could be a marker for what the Republican Party will run on this November. Light at the end of the tunnel for Democrats, for whom these cases and abortion in general have become a central rallying point for next year’s election efforts.

What’s Next

Now, we probably won’t see any changes in Mifepristone’s distribution until that final decision from the Supreme Court in July 2024, but it is likely their decision will restrict, but cannot ban, the drug. As we become more limited in access to reproductive healthcare through bans on abortion and cases like these, it is so important that we support abortion funds that help pregnant people get the medication they need as well as vote for pro-abortion candidates at every electoral level in 2024.