Justice Samuel Alito Falsely Implies Mifepristone Could Cause "Very Serious Harm"

[Nevilledog]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/03/justice-samuel-alito-falsely-implies-mifepristone-could-cause-very-serious-harm/

Justice Samuel Alito implied that mifepristone—one of the two drugs used in medication abortion, which the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to restrict in what has been billed as “the biggest abortion case since Dobbs“—may cause “very serious harm.”

But there’s just one problem: more than 100 scientific studies show that abortion pills are safe and effective, as my colleagues and I have reported.

Alito made the comments this morning during oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. In 2000, the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone. The drug was made more widely available in 2016; in 2021, the FDA relaxed some rules around how it could be prescribed—including allowing it to be used through 10 weeks’ gestation and given virtually. The stakes of the case are significant, given that medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute, and that telehealth abortions—in which providers virtually prescribe and mail pills—continue to rise, even in banned states.

In questioning today, Alito prodded at the FDA’s regulation of mifepristone by trying to explore the possibility that despite years of safety, there were hidden adverse effects not being tracked.

*snip*