Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is vowing to hold out a brand new authorities research of abortion medicine that would result in additional restrictions on the drug that’s the most important methodology of ending pregnancies nationwide.
The controversial Trump administration official advised a gaggle of Republican states that the Meals and Drug Administration will probe whether or not mifepristone ought to face new tips to be used in abortions although it has been declared protected and efficient for years.
“(We) will conduct a study of the safety of the current (safety protocol) in order to determine whether modifications are necessary,” Kennedy wrote within the letter dated final week and first reported by ABC. “(It will) review of the evidence, including real-world outcomes and evidence, relating to the safety and efficacy of the drug.”
Mifepristone is utilized in greater than 60% of all abortions carried out within the U.S. and is by far the most typical methodology of being pregnant termination, particularly in most Republican states which have successfully outlawed surgical abortion.
mifepristone
Allen G. Breed/AP
FILE – Bins of the drug mifepristone sit on a shelf on the West Alabama Ladies’s Heart in Tuscaloosa, Ala., March 16, 2022. (AP Photograph/Allen G. Breed, File)
One of many key modifications might be to require docs to see sufferers in individual to prescribe mifepristone, which might quantity to a ban on sending the drug by mail.
That may stop ladies in purple states from ending pregnancies in any means except they have been keen and capable of depart their residence state to see a physician.
Some purple states like Texas have additionally outlawed receiving abortion medicine by mail from docs in different states, however Democratic states have countered with protect legal guidelines defending docs from being prosecuted in different states.
Kennedy, who has largely drawn criticism for his skepticism about vaccines, cited a questionable research carried out by an anti-abortion group to assert that mifepristone could also be extra harmful than beforehand thought.
Mainstream medical teams say the drug has been used hundreds of thousands of instances by American ladies and has confirmed protected and efficient over a long time of use.
Abortion-rights activists say the push for brand spanking new research of mifepristone is a thinly veiled effort to impose anti-abortion coverage throughout the nation, even in blue states like New York, which has handed legal guidelines explicitly defending a abortion rights.
“This is political interference designed to rip away our freedoms,” stated Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All.
The motion comes as a conservative federal decide in Texas is contemplating whether or not to revive a lawsuit filed by anti-abortion teams aiming to ban mifepristone nationwide. The Supreme Courtroom ordered a earlier swimsuit dismissed on a authorized technicality however didn’t rule on the substance of the case.
