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The majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, as do most Texans. But the Lone Star State is yet again leading the charge to restrict abortion – this time on a national scale.
On Friday, a federal judge in Amarillo, Matthew Kacsmaryk, halted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a drug used for more than two decades in medication abortion. Reproductive rights advocates have blasted the case as lacking in scientific credibility and merit, and the decision has already attracted legal challenges and appears poised to wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kacsmaryk’s ruling, which he’d scheduled to go into effect at the end of Friday, would also affect states that still allow abortion.
“Texas has long been a proving ground for attacks on abortion access, and this decision by Judge Kacsmaryk is just one more in a long line of decisions that wear away at reproductive rights in the United States,” said Jaymie Cobb, interim executive director of Jane’s Due Process, an organization that helps young Texans confidentially access abortion and birth control.
Cobb noted in an email to the Observer that on the same day as Kacsmaryk’s decision, a Washington judge ruled that the FDA can’t limit mifepristone in the 17 states that sued to keep access, adding: “The Texas ruling further reinforces a tiered system in which someone’s ability to access abortion is completely dependent on where they live and the personal resources that they have.”
Mifepristone is critical to abortion access in the United States. Medication abortion made up more than half of abortions nationwide in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive and sexual health-focused policy and research organization.
The drug is also “highly safe and effective,” CNN reported, and its death rate is 0.0005% – meaning that for every 1 million people who’ve taken it, there have been an associated five deaths. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced earlier this year that he’d joined a multi-state effort aimed at slowing mifepristone prescriptions.
Organizations like Plan C have worked to spread awareness on how to access abortion if you live in a state without protections. Its website notes that even in Texas, there are still ways to get abortion pills.
“Texas has long been a proving ground for attacks on abortion access.” – Jaymie Cobb, Jane’s Due Process
North Texas U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett sent a letter on Saturday, with 40 of her Democratic colleagues’ signatures, urging the administration of President Joe Biden to do everything it can to preserve mifepristone’s FDA approval.
This morning, I sent a letter to @POTUS signed by 40 of my fellow @HouseDemocrats calling on the Biden Administration to use all means at their disposal to preserve @US_FDA approval for #mifepristone and other critical meds and protect access to these treatments nationwide. pic.twitter.com/F9SYAcOW86
— Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (@RepJasmine) April 8, 2023
After the U.S. Supreme Court last summer overturned the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade, Republican lawmakers began working to scrub abortion-related information from the internet in Texas.
GOP state Rep. Steve Toth of The Woodlands introduced a bill in February that would effectively prevent internet users from reading about how to access abortion pills. Despite such attacks, recent polling indicates that around two-thirds of Americans, including 49% of Republicans, think medication abortion should stay legal.
Following Kacsmaryk’s ruling, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa called Friday a “tragic day for women across America, and another shameful day” for Texas in a news release. He added that religious extremists cherry-picked Kacsmaryk, who they believed would be sympathetic to their views.
To be sure, abortion foes in Texas and beyond are elated with the judge’s decision.
Mary Elizabeth Castle, director of government relations for Texas Values, told the Observer she believes it’s fair to say that Texas has continued to “lead the way on life.” She pointed to Texas’ newly passed budget: House lawmakers recently approved $80 million for Texas’ Alternatives to Abortion program, for instance.
Castle also cited the state’s strong anti-abortion laws and said it’s working to close any remaining legal loopholes. “The overturning of Roe v. Wade did leave it up to the states,” she continued, “but we’re seeing more and more people across our country recognizing just how important life is and how the person inside the womb is a human, just as much as the person outside the womb is a human, too.”
Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, railed against Kacsmaryk during a press call on Monday. The case in Amarillo is part of the broader push to ban abortion on a national scale and could have ripple effects beyond the reproductive-health realm, she said.
“If the courts allow this decision to stand, they will be in essence telling every fringe group with an opposition to a medication or vaccine, ‘Just go find a politically aligned judge who can then, with a stroke of a pen, deny Americans the ability to get the critical life-saving treatment they need,'” Dalven said. “That possibility should have all of us very concerned.”
