Family Research Council (FRC), together with Dr. Martha Shuping, a psychiatrist from North Carolina, has filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The case examines the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone and the removal of certain health safeguards by the agency in 2016 and 2021.
The FRC’s amicus brief supports reinstating previous FDA protections for women’s health and safety that were changed in recent years. The brief states: “support [for] the Fifth Circuit’s decision to restore the FDA’s previous protections for women’s health and safety, before changes made by the FDA in 2016 and 2021…Mifepristone is a drug like no other. A woman can conveniently take it in the privacy of her own home, expecting to end her pregnancy with little difficulty, then find herself alone and without physical or emotional support as she views in horror her unborn child in the toilet or in her hand.” It continues: “Along with the long-lasting psychological and spiritual distress that can arise from this experience, there are serious, even life-threatening, adverse effects that have occurred…One might have expected that such a drug would be administered under tight supervision and with an ironclad protocol designed to get patients help when emergencies arose. That is not how FDA has regulated mifepristone.”
Dr. Shuping contributed to the brief based on her experience working with women who have suffered psychological trauma after abortions, including those affected by intimate partner violence. She stated: “We hear about abortions of unwanted children, but people don’t realize that there are many abortions of wanted children–wanted and loved by the mother, but not by an abusive partner. Current regulations make it easier to coerce abortion; resuming previous regulations will improve safety for women in many ways.”
Dr. Chris Gacek, FRC Senior Fellow for Regulatory Affairs who helped draft the brief, commented: “The FDA is yet another example of a bureaucracy pushing a political agenda that has undermined its credibility. When the two-drug abortion regimen was approved in 2000, we argued that the safeguards were inadequate. The FDA gutted even those weak protections in 2016 and 2021. The Fifth Circuit was correct in the assessment putting those changes on hold, and the Supreme Court should affirm its decision in this case.”
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on March 26 regarding whether to uphold or overturn changes made by the FDA concerning mifepristone regulations.
To read more about FRC’s position or access their full amicus brief visit http://frc.org/get.cfm?i=LK24C05&f=LK24C05.
