Even if a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sharply curtailing access to the most commonly used abortion drug were allowed to go forward, it would not impact Massachusetts residents, according to the governor.
A three-judge panel partially overturned the ruling of a Texas-based federal judge banning mifepristone but nevertheless rolled back recent decisions by the Food and Drug Administration aimed at making the drug easier for patients to access.
The court’s ruling is currently stayed due to intervention by the Supreme Court, which in April ordered that drug remain available for use until all appeals are exhausted.
Even if it stands, the governor says patients in Massachusetts will continue to have access to medication abortion.
“No court ruling will change the fact that medication abortion remains safe, legal and accessible in Massachusetts,” Healey told the Herald through a spokesperson on Thursday.
The decision by the New Orleans-based appeals court would end the availability of the drug through the mail and require that it be administered in the presence of a medical doctor within the first seven weeks of pregnancy. The ruling, if it were allowed to take effect, would cover all 50 states.
The Biden Administration was quick to announce they would appeal the Fifth Circuit’s decision, meaning that one way or the other the case now rests in the hands of the same Supreme Court Justices who last year overturned Roe v. Wade, ending with it half a century of legal protection for abortion.
“If the Fifth Circuit’s ruling stands, it will significantly roll back the ability for women in every state to get the health care they need, and undermine FDA’s scientific, evidence-based process for approving safe and effective medications that patients rely on,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
After Amarillo-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued his decision effectively banning mifepristone in response to a lawsuit brought by the group Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine against the FDA, Healey responded by issuing an executive order clarifying that the drug would continue to be available under state law in Massachusetts.
“All executive department offices and agencies shall construe the term “reproductive health care services,” as it appears in Chapter 127 of the Acts of 2022, and this Order to include medication abortion and medical management of miscarriage, including but not limited to the use, prescribing, dispensing, or administration of mifepristone or misoprostol,” Healey ordered.
The governor went on to secure 15,000 doses of mifepristone, a two-year supply, in case the ban out of Texas is upheld.
A law signed by Republican former Gov. Charlie Baker after Roe v. Wade was overturned protects Massachusetts abortion providers and patients from legal action taken by other jurisdictions, including preventing the governor from answering out-of-state extradition orders for people charged over their pursuit of reproductive care.