The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday, March 26, in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, along with Danco Laboratories v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, regarding the FDA’s approval of the chemical abortion drug Mifepristone, half of a two-drug protocol used to end pregnancies in early stages.
The questions for discussion presented are:
- Whether an association can demonstrate Article III standing to enjoin a government action by arguing that some unspecified member may be injured at some future time by the challenged action;
2. Whether the Fifth Circuit erred in upholding the preliminary injunction of FDA’s 2016 and 2021 actions based on the court’s review of an incomplete administrative record.
The FDA initially approved the drug in 2000, and in 2016 and 2021 it made several changes including allowing the drug to be used through the 10th week of pregnancy, rather than only through the 7th week, allowing healthcare providers who are not physicians to prescribe the drugs, and allowing the drug to be prescribed through telehealth appointments and sent through the mail. A group of doctors and medical groups have challenged the FDA’s removal of critical safeguards allowing near-unfettered access to Mifepristone despite the drug’s questionable safety record.
In September 2023, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals placed restrictions on the distribution of Mifepristone after determining that the FDA violated federal law, ignored science, and failed to put the health and safety of women first while placing and keeping the drug on the market. The FDA and Danco, which manufactures Mifepristone, have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit’s decision.
According to the latest study produced by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, chemical abortions accounted for 63 percent of all abortions in 2023. That is 642,700 of the estimated 1,026,690 abortions tracked by the U.S. health care system last year, an increase from 53 percent in 2020.
Regarding physical safety risks to the woman, chemical abortions have a complication rate four times that of surgical abortions, and as many as one out of five women will suffer a complication. In addition, approximately two percent of all pregnancies are ectopic and taking Mifepristone can mask the symptoms of tubal rupture, putting women at risk of severe bleeding and death. Between September 28, 2022 and June 30, 2021, 4,207 adverse events associated with chemical abortions were voluntarily reported to the FDA. These events include 26 maternal deaths, 97 ectopic pregnancies, and 1,045 hospitalizations.
Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case on behalf of the Frederick Douglass Foundation and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, arguing how Mifepristone has become a “tool of modern-day eugenics” to inexpensively abort millions of unborn lives through widespread abortion. In fact, the patent for Mifepristone belongs to the Population Council, a nonprofit public health research organization with deep ties to eugenics. When the eugenics movement fell out of favor with the fall of Nazi Germany, John D. Rockefeller III in 1952 founded the Population Council as a means to still advance eugenic population control, but under different guises it still uses today such as “reproductive health,” “reproductive choice,” and “family planning.”
With an opportunity for an inexpensive and widespread abortifacient drug to further its mission, the Population Council facilitated clinical trials, obtained FDA approval in 2000, and identified a manufacturer. During the FDA approval process, the Population Council transferred the rights to produce and distribute Mifepristone to Danco Laboratories, a “‘secretive and obscure’ entity formed in 1995 in the Cayman Islands, in return for undisclosed royalties.” Danco Laboratories then used the Chinese firm Hua Lian Pharmaceutical Co. to manufacture the compounds for the drug.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The FDA can no longer be allowed to circumvent safety laws to allow a eugenic drug to destroy innocent children and harm women. Chemical abortions are never safe and harm women and kill children.”
