As longtime pro bono counsel for freestanding abortion providers in Pennsylvania, WLP attorneys are working to protect Pennsylvanians from the latest anti-abortion attempt to deprive us of access to abortion.
Conflicting rulings regarding the availability of mifepristone, a medicine commonly used in medication abortion and to treat patients a range of serious conditions, are at issue as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruling goes before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling by midnight tonight.
Read our previous coverage of the opposing rulings here and here.
For now, it’s important to understand that both in-clinic and medication abortion remain legal and available in Pennsylvania.
U.S. Supreme Court brief
Women’s Law Project joined an amicus curiae brief filed to the U.S. Supreme Court requesting that the Texas ruling not take effect while pending appeal.
The brief makes only two arguments. The first argument is that mifepristone is safe, effective, and widely used. The second is that the public health consequences of restricting access to mifepristone based on junk science will be immediate and severe. The brief correctly notes that the Texas district court that issued the unprecedented ruling suspending the 23-year FDA approval of mifepristone “effectively substituted itself for the agency as the expert evaluator of drug safety, cherry-picking from debunked data and anecdotes to opine about the purported dangers of medication abortion.”
The anti-abortion movement routinely promotes and relies on junk science and false medical claims because legitimate scientific evidence affirms that abortion is critical healthcare.
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Women’s Law Project is a non-profit public interest law center in Pennsylvania devoted to advancing and defending the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people in Pennsylvania and beyond.
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