(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
What to Watch for in the Supreme Court’s Mifepristone Ruling [1]
['Melissa Gira Grant', 'Alex Shephard', 'Tori Otten', 'Michael Tomasky', 'Jason Linkins', 'Simon Lazarus']
Date: 2023-04-20
The Christian right and anti-abortion groups have been villainizing medication abortion for years; the FDA’s decision to expand access in 2021 only enraged them further. Allowing providers to prescribe mifepristone through telehealth is “death by mail delivered to your doorstep,” claimed Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins in 2021. Abortion rights opponents commonly call mifepristone “chemical abortion”—language used in this recent case, including by the judge they sought out to rule on it, Texas federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. On April 7, when Kacsmaryk granted the abortion rights opponents’ request for an injunction in this case, what he was really doing was attempting to overrule the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.
In his ruling, Kacsmaryk also agreed with the abortion rights opponents’ argument—baffling to many people—that under existing federal law, mailing mifepristone was already a crime. Alliance Defending Freedom has cited the Comstock Act, an anti-vice law from 1873, to make this shaky case. The Comstock Act broadly defines “obscene” and “indecent” materials and makes it a crime to send or deliver them by mail. “Every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion” is deemed “unmailable” under the Comstock Act, and subject to fine, imprisonment, or both. When ADF senior counsel Erin Hawley argued the case in Kacsmaryk’s court in March, she raised Comstock numerous times to challenge the FDA’s regulation of mifepristone. “The Comstock Act plainly prohibits the mailing of drugs that are designed, manufactured, or intended for use as abortions,” said Hawley. “We submit that plainly applies to the FDA’s actions here.”
“It is indisputable that chemical abortion drugs are both ‘drug[s]’ and are ‘for producing abortion,’” Kacsmaryk wrote in his ruling, agreeing with Hawley; and that, he reasoned, makes the drugs unlawful to mail. It’s hard to overstate the possible implications of this line of reasoning: Taking this argument to one possible conclusion, attorneys and jurists could claim that any surgical or medical supplies used for abortion are also “nonmailable” under criminal law, jeopardizing the supply chains needed for in-clinic abortions in states where abortion is legal.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://newrepublic.com/article/172087/watch-supreme-courts-mifepristone-ruling
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
