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In 'very irregular' order, Trump judge tries to keep medication abortion ban hearing secret [1]

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Date: 2023-03-13

Kacsmaryk didn’t issue a gag order to the lawyers, The New York Times says in follow-up reporting, but asked that they keep the information secret “as a courtesy.” Amarillo is relatively isolated in rural Texas, with just a few direct flights in, and hours away from the state’s metropolitan areas. Providing essentially no notice to the public of what is supposed to be a public hearing is “very irregular,” as one person familiar with the case told the Times, “especially for a case of intense public interest.” The judge and his staff refused to provide comment to either the Post or the Times.

The hearing in question is on the injunction the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine has asked for to block the use of one abortion drug, mifepristone. The organization, which was incorporated in August in Amarillo, is suing to overturn the FDA’s approval of medication abortion entirely, but right now, will settle for ending the use of mifepristone. It is normally used in the U.S. in conjunction with a second drug, misoprostol, for safe and effective abortions. Misoprostol is approved for other medical uses, and can be used alone to induce abortion. It’s slightly less effective on its own, and is likely to cause more side effects than when used with mifepristone.

The forced birth groups, amalgamated as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, is trying to overturn FDA authorization of both in its challenge, but for the moment, would settle for this injunction to force the FDA to reverse its approval of mifepristone and get it off the market in the 20 states where abortion is banned. That would effectively shut down the use of the drug across the country.

Notably, legal experts say that this would be “the first time that a court had acted to order that a drug be removed from the market over the objection of the F.D.A.” That’s a very slippery slope for federal courts and for public health, the politically appointed deciding what drugs the FDA gets to approve for public use.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/13/2157795/-In-very-irregular-order-Trump-judge-tries-to-keep-medication-abortion-ban-hearing-secret

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