No One Can Sue the FDA?

Yesterday, I joined many pro-life allies outside of the U.S. Supreme Court as the Court heard oral arguments in a major case – FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine – involving the FDA’s loosening of restrictions for chemical abortion drugs, now the number one method of abortion.  

For context, in 2000, the FDA illegally approved the abortion drug mifepristone under rules that allow the agency to approve drugs that provide meaningful therapeutic benefits over existing treatments for serious and life-threatening illnesses, such as AIDS. Pregnancy, of course, is not an illness, and abortion is not a treatment. But the FDA claimed otherwise, abusing its own regulation and illegally approving the abortion drug with tragic effects.

Then, in 2016, the FDA under President Obama abandoned multiple safety protocols put in place when the drug was originally approved, including raising the maximum gestational age allowed for use from 7 weeks to 10 weeks. The risk of adverse events increases drastically as development progresses, yet the Obama FDA disregarded science to advance its sacred cow of abortion.

In 2021, under the guise of COVID, the Biden administration made things even worse by eliminating the requirement to meet in person with a healthcare provider, and allowing mifepristone to be prescribed through telemedicine.  But that reduces the circumstances where doctors would conduct an ultrasound to identify contraindications such as advanced gestational age or ectopic pregnancy. These changes make it far more likely that women will end up in emergency rooms from serious and life-threatening complications.

While the Court will be addressing these issues, it spent most of its time yesterday discussing whether or not the plaintiffs in this suit have standing to bring this challenge. Justice Thomas asked a good question right out the gate: If these emergency room doctors don’t have standing to challenge unlawful actions of the FDA that force them to participate in completing an abortion in an emergency room due to the FDA’s removal of safeguards, who could have standing? The government’s lawyer was clear in her answer: No one can challenge the FDA’s actions.

Just imagine what a scary scenario that presents if no one can challenge the FDA’s unlawful actions!

Right now it’s anyone’s guess how the justices will come down on the issue of standing. But one thing is clear: Whatever the Court does will have a significant impact on the accessibility of these deadly abortion drugs nationwide, as well as the safety of women who would seek this unfortunate path. Let’s continue to be in prayer for the Justices as they decide another monumental abortion case likely to be released in June.