The future of access to abortion pills could face fundamental legal questions about who has the right to sue.
Some of the anti-abortion doctors involved in the Supreme Court case seeking to limit access to the pill include one of the anti-abortion groups suing the Food and Drug Administration to reduce distribution of the drug mifepristone. There is also Dr. Christina Francis, who is leading the group. . She said she experienced psychological injuries while treating patients who took the drug.
It remains unclear whether it would meet the standard necessary to sue in federal court, and plaintiffs would suffer tangible damages if mifepristone remains widely available. Lawyers call this requirement effective.
Dr. Francis, president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in an interview Friday that the FDA is “forcing me to participate in an act that I am morally opposed to.”
These statements were made by others involved in the lawsuit, including an Indiana doctor and state legislator who called for stronger penalties for abortion providers, and a California doctor who helped develop an abortion pill reversal law that had no scientific basis. Doctors who are anti-abortion activists have expressed similar sentiments. evidence.
No anti-abortion doctor is required to prescribe drugs or treat abortion patients on a regular basis, but they may encounter such patients in the emergency room and may even treat side effects. It also states that it can cause difficulties. They say it will put them under “tremendous stress and pressure” and force them to choose between their conscience and their professional obligations.
The federal government and many legal experts dispute these claims. The government cites years of scientific evidence showing serious complications from mifepristone are extremely rare, and experts are skeptical of doctors' claims of moral harm. has been expressed.
“This seems like a common objection to public policy,” said Elizabeth Sepper, a University of Texas law professor and conscience protection expert. “There are many things our government is doing that go against each of us's conscience. We may think we don't want to be associated with a country that enforces the death penalty. In our legal system, you can't go to court and say, “I'm going to end a public policy that goes against my conscience.'' ”
The plaintiffs' claims may conflict with Supreme Court precedent.
A 2009 court decision in Summers v. Earth Island Institute stated that even if there was a statistical likelihood of harm, that was insufficient evidence.
If the judge determines that the current claims are invalid, the case could be dismissed outright.
The argument was laid out in briefs filed with the Supreme Court.
Attorney General Elizabeth B. Preloger defended the government, saying the evidence presented by the challengers was weak and fell far short of showing actual injury.
“Mifepristone has been on the market for decades, but Plaintiffs cannot identify a single instance in which a member was forced into such care,” she wrote.
He added that a doctor's job involves “stress and pressure,” adding, “Simply seeing a patient who requires emergency treatment does not constitute injury to the doctor who chooses to treat the patient.” insisted.
Danko Laboratories, the maker of mifepristone, said that if the court rules on the plaintiffs' claims, it could lead to a flood of lawsuits from doctors who hate the drug and its regulations, and that it would “destabilize the industry and harm patients.” It warned that it could cause damage.
Lawyers for the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Defending Freedom, which represents doctors, noted that the appeals court said anti-abortion doctors and groups have a position.
At issue in Tuesday's lawsuit are changes the FDA has made since 2016 to expand access to mifepristone. These decisions now allow patients to obtain mifepristone prescriptions via telemedicine and receive them by mail.
Plaintiffs' lawyers said the decisions, which anti-abortion doctors said, increased the risk that “more women will suffer emergency complications from abortion pills.” They said such complications could include “retained fetal parts, heavy bleeding, and severe infection” and could cause doctors “mental, emotional and spiritual distress”. Stated.
The federal government cites data showing there has been no increase in complications since the 2016 decision, and the rate of serious complications is less than 1 percent of cases.
Dr. Francis said in his statement in the lawsuit that he cared for a woman who experienced complications after taking abortion pills supplied by a website that ships abortion pills from India. When asked why that should be relevant to the FDA's decision since the FDA neither approves nor regulates the pills in question, Dr. Francis said that he had a U.S.-based telemedicine provider mail the FDA-approved pills to him. He said he believed that the decision to allow “is also somehow allowing.'' She allows women to transport drugs from India. ”
Dr. Francis said in an interview that in the past two years he has treated four or five patients who had bleeding, infections or needed abortions.
The federal government, states, and hospitals have established conscience protection policies that allow doctors and other health care professionals to opt out of providing treatments they object to. This essentially establishes a route around the harms that anti-abortion doctors allege in their lawsuits. However, there is no evidence in the declaration, lawsuit, or plaintiff's legal brief that either doctor invoked conscience protection.
Dr. Ingrid Scope, another anti-abortion doctor who filed the declaration, said in a written response to the New York Times that she had not invoked such protections. “The group I practiced for 25 years had a no-abortion policy, so that wasn't an issue,” Dr. Skopf said. In her current role, she takes turns a few times a month to cover deliveries and the emergency room, but “if a patient has complications related to an abortion, I take care of them,” she said. Ta.
Dr. Skopf is the author of two recently retracted studies suggesting that abortion pills are unsafe, both cited by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Dr. Francis said in an interview that he was often able to “skip patient care in non-emergency situations.” She said she felt she had to “violate her conscience” in an emergency situation.
Although anti-abortion doctors argue that mifepristone is not safe for women, Dr. Francis and Dr. Skopf object to its use in treating women who have had a miscarriage. I didn't chant. The same regimen as the medication abortion protocol uses mifepristone followed by misoprostol to treat miscarriage.
Dr. Francis said he only prescribed misoprostol because he hadn't seen enough research to know whether using mifepristone first would be more beneficial in that situation. “I have no moral objections,” she said.
Adam Liptak and jody cantor Contributed to the report. julie tate Contributed to research.