The latest move in the fight over the abortion pill erases years of progress in increasing access to the drug, with the leader of the country’s biggest medical body calling it a “profoundly dangerous step backwards.”
A federal appeals court said late Wednesday that the abortion pill, mifepristone, could stay on the market while the Biden administration fights a Texas judge’s ruling that the drug’s more than two-decades-old approval is invalid. But the rules under which the appeals court said the abortion pill can continue to be sold are seven years out of date and not in line with the latest medical research. That’s not by accident.
“The appeals court elevated speculative pseudoscience over data and evidence, arbitrarily rolling back access to a safe and effective drug and leaving millions of women without a critical medication for reproductive health care,” said Jack Resneck Jr., president of the American Medical Association.
