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“By purporting to create a nationwide license to distribute chemical abortion drugs by mail, the FDA threatens to permanently sever women from the physician relationships that are critical to properly resolve complications that inevitably occur.”
–AMICUS BRIEF, STATE OF MISSOURI
This past Friday, 15 amicus briefs were filed in support of a federal lawsuit claiming that the FDA broke the law when it approved the use of chemical abortion drugs and that it has continued to fail and endanger women by repeatedly removing even the most basic precautionary requirements associated with their use.
The lawsuit, known as Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, was first filed in a Texas federal district court in November and is seeking a nationwide injunction while the case goes through the legal process.
Besides the named plaintiff, those suing the government are the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Pediatricians, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, and doctors Shaun Jester, Regina Frost-Clark, Tyler Johnson, and George Delgado.
The lawsuit, considered the first of its kind, states:
“The FDA failed to comply with the plain terms of its own regulations, the FDCA’s strict safety requirements, and longstanding federal criminal laws when approving unsafe chemical abortion drugs and removing commonsense protections—irreparably injuring Plaintiffs and their patients.”
The 15 friends-of-the-court briefs were filed Friday in support of these plaintiffs by a large number of organizations and government entities. The list, hardly definitive, includes nearly two-dozen state attorneys general; 67 members of Congress; Texas business leaders; pro-life advocates, such as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the Charlotte Lozier Institute; conservative and Christian groups like Family Research Council and Concerned Women of America; the Ethics and Public Policy Center; and the Catholic Bar Association.
Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the plaintiffs in the suit, expects that even more organizations will file additional briefs “elaborating on the broad harms of these drugs—including physical, psychological, financial, and societal harms.”
The FDA first approved the chemical abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol in 2000 by characterizing pregnancy as an “illness” and contending that the drugs provide a “meaningful therapeutic benefit” even though the only therapeutic purpose is to kill a developing child in the womb.
Moreover, the lawsuit argues, that in approving the drugs for what were purely political purposes, the FDA failed to abide by its legal obligations to protect the health, safety, and welfare of girls and women. Moreover, it never studied the safety of the drugs under the labeled conditions of use, ignored the potential impacts of the hormone-blocking regimen on the developing bodies of adolescent girls, disregarded the substantial evidence that chemical abortion drugs cause more complications than surgical abortions, and eliminated necessary safeguards for pregnant girls and women who undergo this dangerous drug regimen.
In 2021, the federal government removed the requirement that a woman or girl see a doctor in person before being given the abortion-causing pharmaceuticals and also made it permissible for women and girls to receive the drugs through the mail.
As the Charlotte Lozier Institute notes in its brief,
“The FDA’s new regulations now allow women to self-manage their chemical abortions without ever seeing a doctor in person. Yet the consequences of telemedicine chemical abortion are almost too numerous to count—lack of necessary ultrasounds to confirm gestational age and rule out ectopic pregnancy, inability to confirm that a woman is not being coerced to obtain an abortion, abandonment of women to deal with the medical and psychological repercussions of abortion by herself with no follow-up, and grave harm to physicians who are expected to clean up the mess (in the ER and elsewhere) of self-managed abortion.”
A brief filed the 67 members of Congress argues that the FDA’s actions have violated federal law, stating, “By exceeding the scope of its delegated power from Congress, the FDA has subverted Congress’ public policy interests in patient safety.”
Moreover, a brief filed by the State of Missouri states:
“By purporting to create a nationwide license to distribute chemical abortion drugs by mail, the FDA threatens to permanently sever women from the physician relationships that are critical to properly resolve complications that inevitably occur. The FDA’s new rule not only violates 18 U.S.C. § 1461, as the plaintiffs correctly contend. But it is also unlawful because it fails to consider how eviscerating the medical standard of care will harm women.”
The plaintiffs and the groups supporting their lawsuit are right. The FDA should never have approved these pills. It rushed to approve them for political reasons, without any regard to the health and well-being of the women taking these drugs. There is nothing therapeutic about them; they are designed to kill unborn children.
With its latest ruling, the FDA has made it so any girl or woman can now buy these drugs at a pharmacy and go home and kill her child. She may have horrible complications, but what is that to our government? As long as abortion is advanced, they’re happy. Like oxycodone, Adderall and other “regulated” drugs, these pills will now be circulating freely in society and could easily be sold on the streets and forced on a pregnant woman by abusive husbands or boyfriends, sexual predators, or parents who don’t want to deal with the embarrassment or inconvenience of an unwanted child.
Psalm 82:2-4 says,
“How long will you judge unjustly
And show partiality to the wicked?
Vindicate the weak and fatherless;
Do justice to the afflicted and destitute.
Rescue the weak and needy;
Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”
The left often argues that abortion is necessary for poor women. Where is the concern for the woman’s well-being? What about if she really doesn’t want to murder her baby? What about the guilt she will likely feel the rest of her life? What about the physical problems that these pills can cause? Well, the left doesn’t care about that — they just want more abortions.
A woman with a crisis pregnancy is scared and needy. She needs encouragement, education, resources, and medical care. She needs someone to help her know that she can have her child and still have a happy, meaningful life. To do that, she needs help and she needs someone who cares and is willing to support her. She doesn’t need someone telling her that her life is over if she doesn’t kill her baby. These women are often scared and feel like they have no options.
Christians must support these women, and Christians must protect their children, the most vulnerable, from those who would do them harm.
Most importantly, the court system must enforce the law, ensure the safety of women, and grant an immediate injunction against the FDA’s illegal and unethical actions.
Ready to dive deeper into the intersection of faith and policy? Head over to our Theology of Politics series page where we’ve published several long-form pieces that will help Christians navigate where their faith should direct them on political issues.
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