Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti recently joined 21 state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in the Northern District of Texas in the case of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The plaintiffs in the case against the FDA seek to overturn the agency’s recent policy change regarding mifepristone, a drug treatment that induces abortions.
The Tennessee Star previously reported that mifepristone can end a pregnancy up to ten weeks gestation when combined with misoprostol. The treatment is taken as a pill in two doses.
The FDA approved the distribution of chemical abortion drug treatments to retail pharmacies and mail-order services in January. In the past, patients could only receive mifepristone in a hospital, clinic, or medical office.
Now, the brief filed by the coalition of 22 state attorneys general in the case argues that the FDA’s new policy that allows the drug treatment to be distributed by mail or pharmacy “violates both federal law and state laws” as “current federal criminal law plainly prohibits the distribution of abortion-inducing drugs through the mail.”
“State laws on chemical abortion… account for the public interests at issue – and they do so with the benefit of democratic legitimacy (and legal authority). The FDA’s actions can make no such claim. By obstructing the judgments of elected representatives, the agency has undermined the public interest,” the brief states.
This is not the first time Attorney General Skrmetti has pushed back on the FDA’s new policy regarding mifepristone.
Last month, The Tennessee Star reported that Skrmetti joined a coalition of attorneys general in sending a letter to the FDA demanding that the original policy on the abortion treatment be reimplemented.
“The problems with this change in policy are legion. Most importantly, the FDA has ignored its responsibility to protect health and safety by prioritizing a reckless pro-abortion policy over women’s health,” the attorneys general wrote in the letter.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Jonathan Skrmetti” by Tennessee Attorney General. Background Photo “Food and Drug Administration” by Felton Davis. CC BY 2.0.
FDA = Federal Death Administration