(PNCI) U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is resorting to the scare tactic that the Texas court decision on access to mifepristone for abortion will affect the availability of other medications as well.
She met at the White House with representatives of leading pro-abortion legal, medical and activist organizations to strategize over what the White House called “threats to medication abortion” in anticipation of the decision from the Northern District Court of Texas in the case of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The case seeks to overturn the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone for use in RU486 abortion.
AHM is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom which underscores the significance of the case stating:
“If the judge issues an injunction, the current protocol for medication abortion will be prohibited nationwide, even in states where abortion is legal and protected by state law or constitutional amendment.”
Planned Parenthood Action agrees stating, “If the Texas case is decided in favor of AHM, mifepristone could be taken off the market in all 50 states.”
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In addressing the group, Harris took the issue far beyond access to mifepristone for abortion to create the fear that a decision against mifepristone will affect access to other medications saying that the pro-abortion meeting was about fighting for the rights of Americans “to have access to the medication that they need.”
She said that the case “is not just an attack on women’s fundamental freedoms; it is an attack on the very foundation of our public health system”.
Harris said that those who object to the FDA process used to approve mifepristone “ought to look in their own medicine cabinets to figure out where they’re prepared to say that those medications that they need to alleviate suffering and to prolong the quality of life should no longer be available to them. Because that is what we are talking about.”
The White House statement about the meeting declared that participants “discussed how challenges to the FDA’s authority to determine the safety drugs could undermine public confidence in the continued availability of other approved medications.”
In their challenge to the FDA, the healthcare professionals of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine charge that the FDA “failed America’s women and girls” because it approved mifepristone via an “accelerated” process, a process typically reserved for serious or life-threatening illnesses.
ADF summarizes the case:
By illegally approving chemical abortion drugs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration failed to abide by its legal obligations to protect the health, safety, and welfare of girls and women. The FDA never studied the safety of the drugs under the labeled conditions of use, ignored the potential impacts of the hormone-blocking regimen on the developing bodies of adolescent girls, disregarded the substantial evidence that chemical abortion drugs cause more complications than surgical abortions, and eliminated necessary safeguards for pregnant girls and women who undergo this dangerous drug regimen.
Following the Texas ruling, the case is expected to go to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Editor's note: This article was published by the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues and is reprinted with permission.
