Abortion providers and advocates are making plans for future disruptions to reproductive care after the US supreme court temporarily continued nationwide access to mail-order mifepristone on Thursday while several legal challenges wind their way through the lower courts. Read more at The Guardian
Last week, as they awaited word from the high court about the fate of telehealth abortions, anti-abortion activists secured a closed-door meeting with Justice Department officials. There, they pushed the agency to revive a long dormant policy that could cut off virtually all access to both mifepristone and misoprostol — an 1800s-era anti-vice law known … Read more
Although untouched by the Fifth Circuit’s ruling, misoprostol is not necessarily immune to legal attacks. Louisiana’s lawsuit and parallel suits filed by Florida and Missouri argue that the Comstock Act—a dormant, 19th-century anti-obscenity statute that anti-abortion legal strategists have spent years working to resurrect—bars the mailing of any drug used to induce abortion. This reading … Read more
The new lawsuit, filed Thursday, alleges that the law could create barriers for health care workers who need to administer mifepristone and misoprostol quickly in an emergency, thereby delaying patients’ access to the pills and creating a risk of harm. The complaint also says the law discriminates against people who need the medications, since patients … Read more
Anti-abortion groups could also test the limits of shield laws in more indirect ways. In Texas, says John Seago, the president of Texas Right to Life, pro-abortion groups have put up billboards advertising abortion pills: “You can go to people putting up the billboard. That’s aiding and abetting.” His group has also encouraged Texas lawmakers … Read more
“A lot of people might go: ‘Oh, two minutes, that’s really fast.’ And yes, in the long scheme of things, that’s fast. But when you have someone who is actively hemorrhaging – in two minutes, they can lose hundreds of cc’s of blood,” Freehill said. “So those seconds count. I’m definitely worried about what’s going … Read more
During labor, misoprostol is typically kept at the patient’s bedside, she said. Under the new state law, the medication must be stored in a locked cabinet, potentially on a different floor of the hospital, and will require a nurse to order the drug, enter a code and retrieve it, she said. “Even if that adds … Read more
