(Oregon Right to Life) — A federal court on Tuesday upheld a West Virginia law banning the dangerous abortion pill mifepristone. The decision comes as the FDA has promised to review its approval of mifepristone in light of a new study showing a far higher percentage of serious adverse reactions than previously reported.
On July 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that West Virginia had the right to ban mifepristone, contrary to arguments made by GenBioPro, the manufacturer of a generic version of the drug.
GenBioPro filed a lawsuit against West Virginia in January 2023 in a bid to reverse the state’s 2022 ban on the drug via the “Unborn Child Protection Act.” West Virginia’s law makes the prescription, sale, or dispensing of mifepristone – in person or via telemedicine – a felony.
In GenBioPro v. Morrisey, the company argued that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion drug precluded the state from banning it, The Hill reported.
In its 2-1 decision Tuesday, a panel on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the manufacturer’s claims.
“Just after the Supreme Court restored the states’ traditional authority to regulate abortion, GenBioPro would have us wrest it right back from them,” U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote in the decision, referring to the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and authorized states to make laws regulating or banning abortion.
Wilkinson added that the lawsuit attempting to limit that authority is a thinly disguised “assault on the Dobbs decision.”
Responding to the federal court’s ruling in a Wednesday press statement, National Right to Life president Carol Tobias called it “a powerful reaffirmation of a state’s right to protect the unborn.”
“We praise West Virginia’s pro-life legislators, West Virginians for Life and pro-life West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey for championing the right to life for the most vulnerable among us,” Tobias said.
RELATED: US Supreme Court Rules States Can Block Planned Parenthood from Medicaid Funding
Meanwhile, even as the court’s ruling upholds West Virginia’s right to ban mifepristone, further actions against the abortion pill could be forthcoming at the national level.
Pro-life advocates are hopeful that regulations on the abortion pill will be restored – if not FDA approval fully revoked – in the wake of new research indicating that the serious adverse reaction rate associated with mifepristone is far higher than previously reported.
In April, the Ethics and Public Policy Center released a blockbuster study calculating the severe complication rate associated with the drug to be twenty-two times the one currently listed on the drug’s official FDA label.
According to the study, based on an analysis of public and private insurance claims submitted by 330 million U.S. patients from 2017 to 2023, 10.93% of the 865,727 women prescribed mifepristone for abortions over the seven-year period suffered a serious adverse event – such as sepsis, hemorrhage, and incomplete abortion – within 45 days of taking the drug. That percentage dwarfs the less than 0.5% severe adverse event rate listed on the current FDA label for the two-drug mifepristone and misoprostol regimen.
EPCC researchers have urged the FDA to “immediately reinstate its earlier, stronger patient safety protocols to ensure physician responsibility for women who take mifepristone under their care, as well as mandate full reporting of its side effects.”
READ: Report: Abortion Pills Result in Serious Complications in at Least One in Every Ten Cases
The EPPC report carries strong significance in a post-Roe nation in which chemical abortions have become increasingly common, especially as a way of getting around pro-life state laws that have led to the closures of brick-and-mortar abortion facilities across the country. In 2023, chemical abortions accounted for 63% of all abortions nationwide – up from 53% in 2020.
Last month, in light of the research and following ongoing pressure from pro-life advocates across the country, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary pledged that he would carry out “a review of mifepristone” alongside “the professional career scientists at the Agency who review this data.”
If the FDA’s findings correspond with the EPCC research, the newly announced FDA review could lead to significant changes to the prevalence of mifepristone, potentially shielding many women from serious medical risks and protecting the lives of many unborn babies.
