A seven-day clock is ticking for the Biden administration and higher courts to address an untenable situation around medication abortion – one created by rival federal court rulings from judges in separate corners of the country.
While it’s not unusual for lower courts to disagree on major legal questions, the contradicting orders that came down Friday – within less than an hour of each other – marked the most high-pitched legal battle over abortion access since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade last year.
An emergency appeal of an order halting the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, the first drug used in the medication abortion process, is expected to move rapidly in the coming days and could soon bring the issue back to the Supreme Court’s doorsteps.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told CNN on Sunday that the administration intended to do everything it could to ensure that women have access to abortion pills “not just in a week – but moving forward, period.”
He said that “everything is on the table,” when asked if the FDA could ignore the ruling – a comment later walked back by a department spokesperson.
In the case in question, a lawsuit brought by anti-abortion activists in Texas, a judge said Friday that he was suspending the longstanding approval of the drug, but delayed his order by seven days to give the government time to seek a higher court’s intervention.
Less than an hour later, a federal judge in Washington state – who is overseeing a lawsuit brought by state Democratic attorneys general seeking to expand access to abortion pills – issued an order barring the FDA from taking any steps to reduce the drug’s availability. That order applies in the 18 jurisdictions that brought the lawsuit, but would seem to conflict with the Texas order, which applies…
Read the full article here