A company behind the manufacturing of a pill used in chemical abortions filed a lawsuit on Wednesday morning challenging state bans on the abortions, The New York Times reported.
GenBioPro, which makes the abortion pill mifepristone, filed the lawsuit in a West Virginia federal court to argue that Federal Food and Drug regulations (FDA) take priority over state laws regulating abortion, according to the NYT. The lawsuit argues that the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill trumps state laws and that abortion bans violate the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which protects interstate commerce. (RELATED: FDA Clears Path For Abortion Pills At Pharmacies)
“Laws like the ones in effect in West Virginia are harmful and unlawful,” Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward and counsel for GenBioPro, said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Our case makes clear that nothing in the Court’s decision last year in Dobbs displaced Congress and FDA’s role in deciding whether medications are safe and effective and determining which regulations should be imposed on mifepristone. States cannot substitute their medical and scientific judgments for judgments FDA has made, and doing so undermines not only access to medication, but the country’s entire drug regulation system.”
As of Jan. 6., at least 13 states have laws on the books that outlaw abortion, according to tracking by the NYT. GenBioPro said that its mifepristone sales in several states which have banned abortion dropped to zero, the NYT reported.
Indiana bans use of abortion medication at 10 weeks and Texas bans the pills starting at seven weeks, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Several other states regulate how abortion pills are administered.
“If people don’t have access to mifepristone, then of course, it impacts the company’s bottom line,” Dr. DeShawn Taylor, GenBioPro’s medical director, told the NYT.
The FDA announced earlier this month that abortion pills could be dispensed at pharmacies without an exam from a doctor. The Department of Justice (DOJ) decided in December that the U.S. Postal Services could continue shipping abortion pills to red states that banned abortion.
More than half of all abortions in America use abortion pills, the NYT reported.
WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 01: (L-R) Alana Edmondson, Lila Bonow, Amelia Bonow, Aiyana Knauer celebrate after taking abortion pills while demonstrating in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices hear hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a case about a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, on December 01, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
If the court rules in favor of GenBioPro then states which banned abortion could be compelled to allow the pill to be prescribed, the NYT reported. Experts, however, worry that a ruling against the company could set precedent for states to outlaw other prescriptions including the COVID-19 vaccine or morning-after pills.
Another lawsuit filed Wednesday by a North Carolina obstetrician-gynecologist challenges state requirements for allegedly going beyond FDA guidance on regulating mifepristone.
The FDA declined to comment.
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