(CNSNews.com) -- On Apr. 4, Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee (D) announced that he had ordered the Department of Corrections to purchase 30,000 doses of the abortion pill (mifepristone) at a reported cost of $1.275 million, as a precaution against a "national conspiracy" by pro-life activists to further restrict abortion.
On Friday, April 7, a federal judge in Texas placed a stay on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of the abortion pill, a decision which the Biden administration announced (on Apr. 7) it would appeal.
Prior to Friday's ruling, Gov. Inslee said, “This Texas lawsuit is a clear and present danger to patients and providers all across the country. Washington will not sit by idly and risk the devastating consequences of inaction. Washington is a pro-choice state and no Texas judge will order us otherwise.”
“Women in Washington are under attack from a multi-head, a hydra-headed beast that’s coming after this right," Inslee said, adding that the pill purchase was a "very important insurance policy" against a "national conspiracy."
The organization SBA Pro-Life America denounced Inslee's action and comments. “More than six in 10 Americans oppose mail-order abortion drugs, yet extremist Democrats like Jay Inslee are spending millions to stockpile dangerous pills instead of focusing on the real needs of their constituents," said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser.
“Democrats like Inslee and the abortion industry view mail-order abortion pills as their ‘insurance policy’ against efforts to safeguard unborn children and their mothers, even more so in the Dobbs era," she added.
"For countless women and girls cut off from a doctor’s in-person supervision – especially in rural areas far from the nearest hospital – the only ‘insurance policy’ for complications like prolonged and severe bleeding, infection, missed ectopic pregnancy, or the need for follow-up surgery is the emergency room," said Dannenfelser. "Politicians and bureaucrats are playing a reckless game with the lives of women and children.”
To cause an abortion, the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol should be taken prior to the 11th week of pregnancy. Mifepristone is taken first and then, 24 hours later, 4 misoprostol pills are taken. Several hours later cramping and bleeding starts and the tiny baby is expelled from the uterus.
Some of the potential side effects of mifeprestone include fatal infection and prolonged heavy bleeding, according to the product's label.
As for "serious adverse events in patients who took mifepristone," the FDA reported, "As of June 30, 2022, there were 28 reports of deaths in patients associated with mifepristone since the product was approved in September 2000.... The adverse events cannot with certainty be causally attributed to mifepristone because of concurrent use of other drugs, other medical or surgical treatments, co-existing medical conditions, and information gaps about patient health status and clinical management of the patient."
Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director who now advocates for life, said in a statement, "I've had two abortions and one of them was the abortion pill -- it was horrific. I was alone, in immense pain, and bleeding profusely."
Questioning the FDA's approval methods, in November 2022 several medical organizations, including the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and the American College of Pediatricians, filed a lawsuit against the FDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division.
The plaintiffs argued that the FDA's approval of mifepristone was improper because, in the process, the agency labeled pregnancy an "illness" and claimed the drug provided "meaningful therapeutic benefit" over exusting treatments.
However, states the lawsuit, "pregnancy is not an illness, nor do chemical abortion drugs provide a therapeutic benefit over surgical abortion. In asserting these transparently false conclusions, the FDA exceeded its regulatory authority to approve the drugs."
Also, "the FDA needed to disavow science and the law because the FDA never studied the safety of the drugs under the labeled conditions of use despite being required to do so by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA)," reads the lawsuit.
In his Apr. 7, 2023 ruling, Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk -- appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019 -- issued a partial stay in the FDA's approval of mifepristone and gave the federal government seven days to file an appeal.
The judge also explained in his ruling why it took 22 years for this lawsuit to emerge. "Simply put, FDA stonewalled judicial review — until now," sia dJudge Kacsmaryk. "Before Plaintiffs filed this case, FDA ignored their petitions for over sixteen years, even though the law requires an agency response within '180 days of receipt of the petition.'"
"But FDA waited 4,971 days to adjudicate Plaintiffs’ first petition and 994 days to adjudicate the second," he wrote. "Had FDA responded to Plaintiffs’ petitions within the 360 total days allotted, this case would have been in federal court decades earlier. Instead, FDA postponed and procrastinated for nearly 6,000 days."
Given the Texas ruling, Washington State Sen. Karen Keiser (D) said, “The last year has made it clear that we cannot be complacent when it comes to reproductive health.... We cannot allow an extremist judge in Texas to deny Washingtonians access to this safe, effective medication...."