Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined in filing an amicus brief with 21 other state attorneys general in a case being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court that could decide the fate of a popular abortion pill.
“This case is about protecting the authority of the people of Tennessee to govern themselves,” Skrmetti stated, according to the attorney general’s website. “In our system, major policy decisions are made by the people through their elected representatives and decisions about abortion law are made by state governments. The U.S. Constitution prevents federal bureaucrats from undermining Tennessee’s Human Life Protection Act no matter how much they disagree with it.”
The case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, began in November 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas when the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, among others, sued the Food and Drug Administration for its deregulation of mifepristone, a chemical abortion drug. By doing so, the FDA put the health of pregnant women and girls at risk, the complaint said.
The plaintiffs also argued that the FDA’s original approval of the drug in 2000 was wrong.
In April 2023, the district court ordered the FDA to “stay”—or suspend—its original approval of mifepristone in 2000. In response, the FDA filed an emergency motion with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the district court’s order. That way, the FDA could appeal the district court’s decision.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FDA’s deregulation of mifepristone, starting in 2016, was not lawful. Still, the court said the plaintiff’s challenges to the FDA’s mifepristone approval in 2000 cannot be considered due to a statute of limitations.
The FDA applied for that ruling to be stayed by the Supreme Court, which has agreed to review the case.
The amicus brief argues that by approving and deregulating mifepristone, the “FDA’s actions impose an elective-abortion regime” that disregards the separation of powers outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
“Our Constitution establishes a limited federal government that leaves most power with—and accountable to—the people,” the attorneys general wrote in the brief. “Federal agencies present special risks to that design.”
The attorneys general further argued that states, not federal agencies, have the primary authority to “protect health, safety, and welfare” under the Constitution.
“Using that power, many states have regulated and restricted abortion—including chemical abortion,” the attorneys general continued. “Yet the FDA has greenlighted a permissive elective-abortion policy—undercutting States’ laws, thwarting States’ abilities to enforce them, and hobbling the interests that those laws serve.”
Tennessee state law defines criminal abortion as “the use of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance or device” with the intent to kill an unborn child. The law makes exceptions in the cases of increasing the probability of a live birth, preserving the life or health of a child after birth, removing ectopic or molar pregnancies, and removing a dead fetus.
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in March, according to a summary of the case published by Alliance Defending Freedom, the firm representing Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
The states that joined in filing the brief included Mississippi, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
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Matthew Giffin is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Matthew on Twitter/X.
