Texas judge to hear arguments for and against abortion pill

The Texas judge who could overturn government approval of the key abortion pill mifepristone has scheduled the first hearing in the case, which could have far-reaching implications for abortion rights in the United States, for Wednesday.

The hearing will be an opportunity for lawyers from the Justice Department, the company that makes the drug and the conservative group challenging it to argue their positions before District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. After they do so, the judge may enter a ruling at any time.

Normally, such a hearing would be quickly placed on the public court docket, where anyone following the case online could see it.

But Kacsmaryk told the lawyers that he would push the hearing date back to Tuesday night to try to minimize disruptions and possible protests, and asked the lawyers on the call not to share information about it before then, according to The Washington Post.

The case that the judge must decide was brought by an association of anti-abortion doctors, who want the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to revoke the approval of the drug mifepristone in the United States.

Mifepristone, the abortion drug that was approved by the FDA in 2000, has been at the center of the US abortion debate in recent weeks.

A ruling banning the sale of abortion pills would be one of the biggest reproductive rights controversies in this nation, since last year the Supreme Court annulled the ruling in Roe v. Wade that protected the right to abortion at the national level. federal.

The Walgreens pharmacy chain decided in early March that it will not distribute abortion pills, including mifepristone, in states with Republican governments or where Republican officials have threatened to sue if the drugs are offered.

The company's decision came after the FDA issued a regulation that would allow the sale of abortion pills in its stores.

Mifepristone can be used together with misoprostol to terminate the pregnancy before the end of the third month of gestation.

Abortions with this type of medication have accounted for 54% of the interruptions of pregnancies in the US in the last two years, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute.

If Kacsmaryk orders the FDA to rescind its approval of mifepristone, the process could take months and would not mark the end of medical abortion in the United States.