A three-judge panel that heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of a commonly used abortion drug seemed receptive to that challenge.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which heard arguments in a case brought by a group of conservative medical groups who oppose mifepristone, a drug used as part of the regimen for medication abortions and miscarriage management, seemed skeptical of the federal government’s defense of that drug’s approval.
The judges were critical of government filings calling a district court decision against the FDA an “unprecedented judicial assault,” with Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod telling Sarah E. Harrington, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department the remarks were “unusual.”
