Lawmakers must protect access to abortion pill
By The Herald Editorial Board
Some advance thinking and preparation by Washington state officials ahead of a Texas federal judge’s ruling last week to ban a long-used prescription drug may preserve access to medication abortion for residents of Washington and other states.
Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk blocked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval — which has been in place since 2000 — of the drug mifepristone, used in a two-pill regimen for safely ending pregnancies in the first 10 weeks of gestation. Kacsmaryk stayed his order for seven days, allowing the Department of Justice to file an appeal, which it did Monday.
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Recall that at the time, the Dobbs ruling came with the supposed assurance that the decision simply returned the abortion debate to the states; that laws regarding reproductive rights would be left to each state’s legislature and its voters to determine.
Kacsmaryk’s ruling in favor of an anti-abortion group’s suit to remove mifepristone from the market in all 50 states removes all doubt about the wider intent to ban all abortions nationwide and will flush out the court justices’ true standing on state’s rights.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-lawmakers-must-protect-access-to-abortion-pill/