The president of the United States announced that he will “fight” a federal judge’s decision to suspend the abortion pill in the country, a move he viewed as “an unprecedented attempt to deny women basic freedoms.”
“My administration will challenge this decision,” Joe Biden said in a White House statement.
The Justice Department has already announced it will appeal Texas federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s decision to suspend the marketing of mifepristone, one of two pills used for abortions, putting the prescription in practice. is prevented.
However, Kacsmaryk, appointed by the former Trump administration, has given federal authorities one week to appeal the decision.
The abortion pill has been widely used in the United States since 2000, and there is no precedent for a judge to single-handedly override medical decisions made by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Mifepristone is one of two drugs used in the US for medical abortion, along with misoprostol. About 500,000 women use this abortion pill on average every year.
However, the US Justice Department announced on Friday that it would appeal the decision.
The government “completely disagrees with this decision,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The government will appeal and request a suspension in the meantime,” he added.
Garland denounced the decision, which affects the entire country, including states that protect abortion rights, as “contrary to the FDA’s conclusion … that mifepristone is safe and effective.”
Once the government’s appeal is filed, the decision will be reviewed in an emergency by a New Orleans appeals court, also known as a conservative. The case must therefore be brought before the US Supreme Court quickly.
In June, the Supreme Court, overhauled by former US President Donald Trump, awarded a historic victory to abortion opponents by striking down the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy, giving each state the freedom to legislate to do so. enact. Since then, about 15 states have banned abortion in their territories.
In Friday’s decision, the Texas judge upheld most of the arguments in the complaint filed in November by a coalition of physicians and anti-abortion organizations against the FDA.
Like them, he cited studies on the risks attributed to the abortion pill, even though they are considered negligible by most of the scientific community. It also accused the FDA of not following procedures to achieve a political goal.
The main US family planning organization also denounced the “deeply harmful” suspension on Friday.
“The Texas judge’s decision to block the FDA’s approval of mifepristone is outrageous and reveals the instrumentalization of our legal system to further restrict abortion on a national level,” Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement.
Source: DN
