Boxes of the medication Mifepristone used to induce a medical abortion are prepared for patients at Planned Parenthood hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, March 14, 2022.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
A federal judge on Friday allowed North Carolina lawmakers to defend restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone, after the state attorney general declined to accomplish that.
Dr. Amy Bryant, a North Carolina physician, sued the state in January to dam its restrictions on mifepristone because they transcend the Food and Drug Administration’s regulations.
State Attorney General Joshua Stein, a Democrat, agreed with Bryant and declined to defend the state’s restrictions on mifepristone. Stein told North Carolina lawmakers the FDA determined that restrictions like those in North Carolina unduly burden patients’ access to a secure and effective drug.
The president of North Carolina’s Senate, Philip Berger, and state House Speaker Timothy Moore intervened to defend the state’s laws. North Carolina has divided government. The state legislature has a Republican majority and Gov. Roy Cooper is a Democrat.
The judge ordered gave the lawmakers until March 24 to reply to Bryant’s lawsuit.
Berger and Moore argued that the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June gave states the facility to manage abortion. Blocking North Carolina’s restrictions on mifepristone would usurp the facility of the state legislature, they said.
The abortion pill has develop into the central flashpoint within the battle over abortion access because the Supreme Court overturned Roe. The North Carolina case is considered one of several legal battles which might be testing whether FDA regulations or state laws will govern the administration of mifepristone.
The FDA significantly eased federal restrictions on mifepristone in January. The agency permanently ended a requirement that patients’ obtain the medication in person from a licensed provider.
The FDA also allowed retail pharmacies to dispense the pill as long as they develop into certified under a federal monitoring program. Patients need a prescription from a licensed health-care provider to get a medical abortion.
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The FDA changes allow patients to get the prescription via telehealth provider and have the medication delivered by mail.
North Carolina’s laws are more restrictive than the FDA’s. The state requires patients to acquire mifepristone from a physician in person at a specially certified facility. The doctor needs to be physically present when the patient takes mifepristone. Women also need to wait 72 hours after signing a consent form before the doctor can administer the pill.
Mifepristone, used together with misoprostol, is essentially the most common method to terminate a pregnancy within the U.S., accounting for about half of all abortions.
Physicians in Texas who oppose abortion have asked a federal judge to order the FDA withdraw its greater than two-decade-old approval of the abortion pill. One in all the pill makers, GenBioPro, has sued West Virginia to overturn its abortion ban.
Democratic attorneys general have asked a federal judge in Washington state to declare the remaining FDA restrictions on mifepristone unconstitutional.
