SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California leaders commended Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that will temporarily preserve access to abortion pills, doubling down on their push to protect reproductive services in the Golden State.
The U.S. Supreme Court blocked an April 7 decision by a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, suspending the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a pill used in combination with another drug to induce abortions.
U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, sided with anti-abortion medical practitioners who argued mifepristone was unsafe.
Kacsmaryk gave the FDA a week to seek emergency relief before his ruling would take effect and the Biden administration immediately appealed. The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, and millions have used it as part of abortion and miscarriage treatment.
On April 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that mifepristone could remain available as the lawsuit makes its way through the courts. However, the three-judge panel imposed significant barriers to access, including a prohibition on sending the pills by mail.
The Supreme Court’s decision ensures mifepristone will remain available while lower court appeals continue. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, legislative leaders and California reproductive health care providers cheered the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Newsom praised the decision, saying the judges “followed science, data, and the law rather than an extreme and out of touch political agenda.”
“Mifepristone is safe, legal, and has been FDA-approved for more than two decades,” he said in a statement late Friday. “Medication abortion is available and accessible here in California and we will continue to fight to protect people’s freedom to choose.”
California Legislative Women’s Caucus leaders Sen. Nancy Skinner and Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, both Democrats, echoed the governor’s message.
”The FDA’s experts approved (mifepristone) two decades ago for nationwide use after determining that it is an extremely safe and effective medication for abortion and other life-saving purposes,” the two lawmakers said in a statement. “(Mifepristone) should remain legal and accessible, and we will continue to fight any court action that seeks to cut off access to this proven and safe medication.”
Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California offered a more cautious reaction.
”Let’s be clear; we should not be having this fight to keep safe & effective abortion care accessible for all who need it,” the organization wrote on Twitter.
Mifepristone is typically used with a second drug, misoprostol. Those seeking abortion care could use only misoprostol, but the single-drug regimen is typically more painful and causes more side effects.
Medications were used in more than half of all 2020 United States abortions, as opposed to surgical procedures performed in clinics, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Newsom and other California leaders have spent the last several years fortifying reproductive rights in California.
In May 2019, just months into his first term as governor, Newsom signed a proclamation on reproductive freedom that welcomed people seeking abortion procedures to California and reaffirmed the right to terminate a pregnancy.
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Newsom issued an executive order and signed more than a dozen bills aimed at protecting abortion access for Californians and out-of-state residents seeking reproductive services. The measures bar coroner investigations following the death of a fetus; make it easier for nurse practitioners to provide abortions, and set aside $20 million to help cover travel, lodging, child care and other expenses for women coming to the state.
In November, California voters overwhelmingly approved a pro-choice ballot measure that enshrined abortion and contraceptive access in the state constitution.
More than a dozen new bills related to abortion are currently moving through the Legislature, including one to protect electronic health records and to safeguard providers who transport drugs.
Following Kacsmaryk’s decision, Newsom announced that California had secured a 2-million pill stockpile of the medication abortion drug misoprostol — an effort that had been months in the making.
The governor blasted the judge’s decision, calling it an “extremist ban” that ignored “facts, science, and the law — putting the health of millions of women and girls at risk.”
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