Supreme Court Oral Arguments on Mifepristone Access: Impact on Reproductive Rights

Tuesday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court could restrict access to mifepristone.

TFD – Dive into the potential consequences of the Supreme Court’s review of mifepristone access, affecting reproductive rights nationwide.

The Supreme Court will take up the topic of reproductive rights again on Tuesday, almost two years after overturning Roe v. Wade. This time, the court will consider restricting access to mifepristone, the first of two tablets used in medical abortion.

Doctors and patient advocates are worried about what might happen if the high court decides to curtail access to the drug before of the oral arguments and final verdict.

Fourteen states currently outright forbid abortion, including pharmaceutical abortion, as a result of the 2022 Dobbs case. A few other states prohibit the mail-order delivery of the medications and mandate that individuals visit a physician in person before being prescribed mifepristone. The Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that promotes access to abortion, estimates that in 2023, medication abortions would make up over two thirds of all abortions performed in the United States.

Whether the Food and Drug Administration ignored significant safety concerns when it increased access to mifepristone starting in 2016 is the matter at hand on Tuesday. One of those future expansions is to provide it through mail-order pharmacies.

A Texas court order from last year mentioned two research that suggested mifepristone might be dangerous. However, those studies were later withdrawn due to conflicts of interest and “fundamental problems with the study design and methodology,” according to the paper.

Dr. Kristyn Brandi, an OB-GYN in New Jersey and a past board chair of Physicians of Reproductive Health, an organization that advocates for reproductive rights, expressed her concerns, saying, “I’m very concerned.” “Most people seeking abortions will be impacted, even though there are alternatives that people could get if mifepristone is no longer available.”

According to Kristen Moore, director of the Expanding Medication Abortion Access Project, it might create “an incredibly dangerous precedent.” Restoring the medicine “under lock and key” entails “breaking the system,” the speaker continued.

Mifepristone was initially licensed by the FDA in 2000 to terminate pregnancies up to seven weeks.

The FDA changed the approval over the course of the last ten years to make the drug easier to obtain. These changes included extending the list of qualified pharmacies that can dispense the medication, including CVS and Walgreens, and enabling prescriptions to be written without a physical visit to the doctor. It also increased the window of opportunity for mifepristone use to ten weeks of pregnancy.

The Supreme Court has the authority to undo these modifications, even in places where abortion is legally permitted. Although the exact date of the court’s decision is unknown, analysts anticipate one around the end of June.

According to Arthur Caplan, the director of NYU Langone Medical Center’s Division of Medical Ethics in New York City, “it is a uniquely important case.” “It is obvious that abortion by pill would end across this nation if the court were to give in to it.”

restricting access to the sole option

According to the FDA, pharmaceutical abortion is both safe and efficient.

One of the two medications in the regimen for early abortions is mifepristone. One to two days later, misoprostol, the second medication, is given.

Progesterone is a hormone that the body needs to sustain a pregnancy, and mefepristone inhibits it. Misoprostol induces uterine contractions and emptying. The drugs, taken as a two-drug combination, effectively terminate a pregnancy almost 100% of the time, per a 2015 study that was published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

According to Dr. Michael Belmonte, a fellow at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, many of his patients prefer pharmaceutical abortion as a safe choice.

“Whenever I counsel a patient, I always offer medication abortion as a possibility,” he stated. Restricting access might “make it harder for patients for whom medication is the right, or in some cases, the only choice for them,” the speaker continued.

Clinics preparing supplies

According to Brandi, she is most worried about those who are unable to travel for a surgical abortion, such as those with impairments.

She also mentioned that women who are in the country illegally would have trouble traveling across state boundaries to get an abortion. The drug is also used to aid in the healing process for women who have miscarried.

“Those who are marginalized will be greatly impacted,” she stated. “For those in need, medication abortion has been a very convenient access point.”

In event of the worst, providers are ready.

Physicians are already stockpiling the drug in their clinics in case they have to serve as both the doctor and the dispenser, according to Moore of the Expanding drug Abortion Access Project.

Nevertheless, she stated, “it could put an intense amount of pressure on an already pressurized ecosystem of abortion care.”

The CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider with clinics in four states, Amy Hagstrom Miller, stated that some patients already believed that medication abortion was illegal statewide even before Tuesday’s decision.

She continued, “That is concerning because it leaves people unclear about their access to care.”

“I frequently find with patients that they hear about something like a bill being introduced and assume it’s already law,” Miller said. “I believe that part of what’s going on here is that strategy of confusing people about their rights and making them fearful of what’s legal and what isn’t.”

When Audrey Wrobel, 27, of Philadelphia and a patient advocate for Planned Parenthood, opted to terminate her pregnancy in 2015, she felt that medication abortion was the greatest option available to her.

Wrobel, who was in college at the time, took a pregnancy test in the grocery store restroom and discovered she was carrying a child. They drove to a Planned Parenthood about 20 minutes away to take a second pregnancy test after she told her boyfriend. After roughly a fortnight, she was prescribed mifepristone.

Wrobel claimed that having a pharmaceutical abortion allowed her to have privacy and obtain “the care I needed on my own terms.”

She said it is not the place of the Supreme Court to dictate what women should or should not do with their bodies.

She remarked, “We are the ones who have to live with the choices.”