Texas Republicans fall all over themselves touting their “pro-life” bona fides. However, their actual laws are anything but. In addition to a near-worship of life-killing guns, their anti-abortion laws have led to skyrocketing maternal deaths.
So, it’s no surprise that on Friday, Texas’ ultraconservative federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked a 2023 FDA regulation allowing abortion-drug mifepristone to be mailed to patients.
As The Texas Tribune explained, the 2023 rule allowed doctors to prescribe mifepristone remotely and the drug to be mailed to patients in Texas and other states where abortion is illegal. Now, it can only be obtained in person.
Mifepristone, in combination with misoprostol, is the most commonly-used method Americans use to end their pregnancies, including to manage miscarriages, The Tribune said. “Through 2024, 1 in 4 abortions were provided through telemedicine, according to the Society of Family Planning.”
Although “studies have shown the drug to be safe and effective Texas has joined Florida in suing the FDA over its original approval of mifepristone, arguing that the agency did not conduct proper safety evaluations,” The Tribune also reported.
And while folks like Texas Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton will most likely be knee-slapping over this latest ruling, he and his cohorts will probably not stop there when it comes to making life harder and more dangerous for women.
As reproductive health reporter Garnet Henderson pointed out, the ruling did not ban misprostol. “Most aborton providers have misoprostol-only protocols ready to go,” she wrote on Bluesky.
The website Safe2Choose advises that misoprostol is safe and effective for terminating a pregnancy. But Henderson noted that the drug takes longer and can be more painful.
While I was writing this, The New York Times reported that one mifepristone manufacturer has made an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. It has asked the court to reinstate the FDA rule allowing for telehealth prescriptions. Another mifepristone manufacturer said it would file a similar request later in the day.
Sadly, I think we can all guess how the abortion-rights-overturning, MAGA Supreme Court will rule.
