The U.S. Supreme Court has denied the states of Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri from intervening in an upcoming abortion pill lawsuit. The Court will soon begin hearing arguments.
Plaintiffs in the case Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) v. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are seeking to hold the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accountable for removing the safety standards it originally deemed necessary to ensure the health and safety of women and girls using mifepristone, a chemical abortion drug.
Abortion Pill Approval and Conflicts
The abortion pill mifepristone was approved by the FDA in 2000, to be prescribed in-person through the 7th week of pregnancy. In 2016, the FDA removed requirements that all non-fatal adverse events be reported, allowed the pill to be prescribed through the 10th week of pregnancy, removed the requirement that only physicians prescribe the drug, and no longer required women to take the first pill at the facility.
In 2021, the Biden FDA eliminated the in-person dispensing requirement and enabled the abortion pill to be permanently shipped by mail. Then in 2023, the FDA further expanded access to allow retail pharmacies to dispense the drug.
Today, profiteers of the deadly abortion pill regimen are flouting the FDA’s REMS safety regulations on the abortion pill. They prescribe the pill past FDA gestational limits, may not have the ability to properly rule out potentially deadly ectopic pregnancies as required, prescribe ‘advanced provision‘ abortion pills to women who are not even pregnant, allow pharmacists to prescribe the drug, and encourage women to lie about abortion pill complications by claiming they are experiencing a natural miscarriage.
Live Action News previously documented potential conflicts of interest and an incestuous funding trail from the investors in U.S. abortion pill manufacturers Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, whose own dollars have been funneled to various groups behind clinical trials and studies of the abortion pill and its purported safety and effectiveness.
In some instances, the studies have been authored by people on the payroll of the abortion pill’s manufacturers.
Lawsuit and Background
AHM’s lawsuit was initiated in November of 2022 by a group of medical doctors and organizations who claimed the 2000 approval of the abortion pill mifepristone was illegal and the expanded use of the abortion pill was unsafe. The doctors testified to treating women with severe complications — “many who presented to the emergency room.”
On April 7, 2023, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk ruled in favor of the plaintiffs to immediately suspend the 2000 approval and subsequent FDA changes to the abortion pill. But the case was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which issued a partial stay.
After the Biden Administration opposed the lower court decision, AHM’s case went back to the Fifth Circuit which heard oral arguments in May. A 62-page decision issued August 16, 2023, by the appeals court ruled to allow mifepristone to remain “available to the public under the conditions for use that existed” prior to 2016.
Then, in September of 2023, the FDA petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the lower court ruling. In addition, Danco, the abortion pill’s manufacturer (which profits off the sales of abortion pills and appears to have failed to enforce safety requirements put in place by the FDA), also filed a brief before the high court.
In December of 2023, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear arguments in the case on March 26, 2024. The High Court will not be considering a challenge to the FDA’s initial 2000 approval, and the case will eventually be returned to the district court for further litigation.
Three States Motion to Intervene
On November 3, 2023, three states (Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri), which had abortion restrictions in place, moved to intervene as plaintiffs in the AHM case. The motion was approved by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in January of 2024.
In their request to intervene, the states argued they had only recently been put on notice “that their interests may be adversely affected.”
“[I]t was not until late August, after the Fifth Circuit’s decision, that a court held that FDA’s recent actions preempt state laws that prohibit the mailing of abortion pills,” the motion claimed. The states also argued that their residents were obtaining the chemical abortion drugs outside the state, then traveling back into the state, and that out-of-state organizations were shipping the dangerous abortion pills into their states.
In its February 20, 2024 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court did not give a reason why it denied intervention to the three previously mentioned states, writing simply that “The motion of Missouri, et al. for leave to intervene is denied.”
Three States granted intervention in AHM abortion pill lawsuit January 2024
“The states’ intervention motion was tailored to maintain the litigation should the Supreme Court find that the conservative physicians lacked standing to sue the FDA over its decisions on the pill,” BloombergLaw.com claimed.
But legal experts Live Action News spoke to denied Bloomberg Law’s claim, pointing to the lower courts, which had already established the original plaintiffs’ standing in the case, something even FDA acknowledged in their brief, which stated, “The district court… rejected the government’s arguments that respondents lack standing, and that their challenge to the 2000 approval of mifepristone was untimely.”
Beyond the Supreme Court
The three states previously suggested that should their intervention bid at the Supreme Court fail, they would file an amicus brief instead, media reports indicated.
“The states will remain as parties in the underlying case. However, Tuesday’s ruling means they will not be part of an appeal of Kacsmaryk’s preliminary order and a later appeals court order that would put significant restrictions on mifepristone, including a ban on prescribing it by telemedicine and dispensing it by mail,” Reuters reported.
Following the decision by the Supreme Court, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said that the states would file a friend-of-the-court brief, and that they “look[ed] forward to continuing our support of the great work” done by the pro-life groups in the case.
The lives of nearly 6 million preborn children have been ended by the abortion pill in the U.S. since its FDA approval in 2000.
