Rulings limiting access to the drug mifepristone, which is often used to end a pregnancy, has differences of opinion on campus and across the country for the future in reproductive health care.
Melanie Zavala, an integrated health science freshman, said she agrees with the ruling and believes abortion is wrong.
“That’s why you have, like, safety precautions, like … condoms for women and men,” Zavala said. “I don’t agree [with abortion] from my point of view. That’s why there are ways of protection and … babies should not suffer because dad and mom didn’t take care of each other.”
Sarah Christine Armenda, an English sophomore, said women should have the right to decide about their bodies.
“Hopefully, we get the right back to have an abortion instead of it being taken away from us for no reason just because people think it’s best for women in their opinion,” Armenda said.
On April 7, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas granted a preliminary injunction preventing the approval of mifepristone, citing that the “FDA acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns” regarding the drug. Kacsmaryk gave the federal government seven days to appeal.
The same day, U.S. District Judge Thomas Owen Rice of the Eastern District of Washington issued a second injunction ordering the federal government to keep the drug available in 17 states and the District of Columbia.
Rice’s ruling applies to Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Washington state and D.C.
“A federal district court judge ruled that the Food and Drug Administration has wrongly approved this particular abortion drug,” said Andrew Smith, a UTRGV political science lecturer, during an interview with The Rider last Tuesday. “Therefore … it can not be mailed to people who want it … because there is no guarantee that it won’t be used for abortion purposes.”
Kacsmaryk’s injunction comes after the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine filed a lawsuit against the FDA over its clearance of the medication mifepristone.
The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine asked the court to “upend that longstanding scientific determination based on speculative allegations of harm offered in support of claims and arguments that are untimely, unexhausted, and without merit,” according to court documents.
More than 20 years ago, the FDA authorized mifepristone for use in conjunction with the medication misoprostol to end pregnancies through 10 weeks gestation.
Dr. Denise De Los Santos, a fellow of The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and a UTRGV assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, told The Rider mifepristone is a drug that blocks the hormone progesterone.
“That’s needed for a pregnancy to continue,” De Los Santos said. “And so, mifepristone, when used together with another medicine called misoprostol, [is] used to end a pregnancy through 10 weeks gestation.”
De Los Santos said the drug has more uses than termination of pregnancy. It can also be used to treat a miscarriage and keep women from needing surgery.
“I think it’s important to realize that … trying to stop mifepristone also affects those patients, which is not fair,” she said. “And then, the other thing is that just banning something used for a termination of pregnancy doesn’t decrease the abortion rate. In fact, it just decreases how safe an abortion is.”
Smith said restrictions on abortion will mainly affect middle-class women.
“Rich people who want to get abortions can always … travel to a state where it’s legal,” he said. “They are free to go to Mexico or Canada or another country and get an abortion. … Middle-class women do not have that option.”
Smith said the case is likely to go to the U.S. Supreme Court. He added that Kacsmaryk insists that the FDA failed to follow its own rules and procedures.
“The judge is claiming that the FDA did not pay attention to evidence that the drug was somehow dangerous despite the fact that there’s no statistical evidence from medical trials that, in fact, this drug is dangerous,” Smith said.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement last Thursday that the Justice Department disagrees with the Fifth Circuit Court’s decision.
“We will be seeking emergency relief from the Supreme Court to defend the FDA’s scientific judgment and protect Americans’ access to safe and effective reproductive care,” Garland stated.
Garland said the Justice Department is committed to protecting Americans’ access to legal reproductive care.
Kirstin Munro, a UTRGV political science assistant professor, said she encourages the community to inform themselves on the topic.
“This is a time to listen to the perspectives of on-the-ground reproductive justice activists, such as South Texans for Reproductive Justice, who have been fighting to ensure access to reproductive health care in the [Rio Grande] Valley for many years,” Munro said.
Responding to Kacsmaryk’s ruling, President Joe Biden said in an April 7 statement that his administration will fight the ruling.
“The lawsuit, and this ruling, is another unprecedented step in taking away basic freedoms from women and putting their health at risk,” Biden stated. “This does not just affect women in Texas–if it stands, it would prevent women in every state from accessing the medication, regardless of whether abortion is legal in a state.”
