Demonstrators for the right to abortion in front of the court of Amarillo, March 15, 2023 (AFP / Moisés ÁVILA)
An ultra-conservative federal judge on Wednesday underlined the exceptional nature of an appeal filed by opponents of abortion, who are asking him to ban the abortion pill throughout the United States.
During a hearing closely followed to the White House, magistrate Matthew Kacsmaryk, however, seemed sensitive to some of their arguments, reported the few journalists authorized in the court of Amarillo in Texas.
At the end of the proceedings, the judge, who was a lawyer in a Christian organization before being appointed to this post by former Republican President Donald Trump, promised to render his decision “as quickly as possible”, d ‘after these reporters.
This is likely to have an impact as resounding as the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States having dynamited, last June, the right to abortion at the federal level, which allowed about fifteen States banish all terminations of pregnancy on their soil.
This time, it could concern the whole country, including states protecting the right to abortion, and affect the approximately 500,000 women who use the abortion pill each year.
The prospect arouses cold sweats among feminists.
Brandishing posters “Not your uterus, not your decision”, activists from the Women’s March association – including a woman dressed as a clown, a symbol of the ambient “circus” – demonstrated in front of the court on Wednesday.
Among them, Lindsay London, a 41-year-old nurse, deplored a legal remedy “100% ideological, which has no scientific basis”.
A few steps away, three women prayed on their knees in court “against the abortion pill”. “There is a lot of concern about the safety” of this product, pastor Rita Cantu Hernandez told AFP.
– “Waste time” –
This argument is at the heart of the complaint filed in November by a coalition of doctors and organizations hostile to abortion against the American Medicines Agency (FDA).
Abortion pills (mifepristone and misoprostol) in an image from the Plan C association ( PLAN C / Elisa WELLS )
They accuse him of having authorized, in 2000, mifepristone (RU 486), one of the two pills used in the United States for medical termination of pregnancy. For them, she failed to follow procedures and approved a “dangerous” chemical.
Without waiting for the examination of the merits of the case, they want the federal justice to suspend the authorization of mifepristone throughout the territory.
Strategically, they filed their appeal in Amarillo, where Judge Kacsmaryk, who does not hide his opposition to abortion, is the only federal judge.
On Wednesday, they urged him to act quickly. The harmful effects of this product “know no bounds” and “we can’t waste time”, pleaded one of their lawyers, Me Erik Baptist, according to a CNN journalist.
Underlining the exceptional nature of his request, the judge asked him if he could cite a “similar” file in which the federal justice would have been asked to withdraw the authorization of a drug approved by the FDA several years earlier.
Me Baptist had to agree that his request was unprecedented.
– 5,6 millions –
FDA advocates then pointed to the safety of mifepristone, which over 23 years has been used by 5.6 million women with extremely few complications (less than 1,500).
The magistrate, however, seemed skeptical, pressing them with questions about it, as well as their process for evaluating the drug.
His decision, whatever it is, will undoubtedly be the subject of an appeal, which will be examined by the federal appeals court of New Orleans, also known for its conservatism.
The case could again end up before the Supreme Court of the United States which, since its reshuffle by Donald Trump, has six out of nine conservative magistrates.
Even if justice ultimately suspended the FDA’s authorization, it would probably take several months before its decision applies. According to health law experts, the drug regulator must follow a strict procedure before withdrawing the authorization of a product.
Women and doctors could also fall back on a second pill, misoprostol, the use of which is combined today with mifepristone for greater efficiency and less pain.
“It will be chaotic either way,” Elisa Wells, founder of the Plan C abortion pill information network, told AFP.
