The Supreme Court is currently hearing a case between Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in which the group of pro-life doctors is arguing that the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone was “arbitrary and capricious” and puts pro-life medical professionals in a position of completing elective abortions, violating their moral and ethical standards.

After the FDA’s initial approval put the drug on the market in 2000, they continued to deregulate the dangerous drug in 2016 and 2021, first allowing healthcare providers who are not physicians to prescribe the drug, then allowing it to be prescribed over video call and sent in the mail. The FDA ignored numerous safety concerns to increase access to mifepristone, putting countless women in danger. 

The Supreme Court will base their decision on whether or not AHM has standing and if the FDA’s approval in 2000 was “arbitrary and capricious.” Read more about those factors here.

In addition to those two fundamental issues, Family Policy Alliance along with a group of state policy councils, including Family Voice, submitted an amicus curiae brief (Latin for “friend of the court”) in support of AHM. An amicus curiae brief offers a new argument for the court to consider from an outside source.

The argument presented in the amicus brief chronicles the FDA’s negligent approval of mifepristone and misoprostol, beginning with their wrongful classification of pregnancy as a “serious or life-threatening illness,” which was used to justify their swift approval of these dangerous drugs that allegedly provide “meaningful therapeutic benefit to patients over existing treatments,” aka surgical abortions. 

Let’s be clear: pregnancy is NOT an illness. The FDA classifying it as such reveals the true nature of the abortion agenda. Fast tracking this two-drug protocol as a “life saving medication” – when in fact it is a life ending medication – is inexcusable and the FDA must be held accountable.

“The FDA believes that pregnancy is a “serious or life-threatening illness” that can be treated by chemical-inducing abortion drugs prescribed by someone who is not a doctor, to a woman who has never been seen by a doctor, up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, shipped to a woman in the mail, and the FDA only wants to hear from medical personnel about adverse events when patients are dead. For all non-fatal adverse consequences, the FDA is content only to receive reports from the manufacturers profiting off of the sale of these drugs. This is a women’s health nightmare,” the amicus brief reads.

When the FDA first approved the two-drug protocol, they had certain safety measures in place due to the known risks associated with mifepristone. Those requirements were:

• Pregnancies must be less than 50 days gestation (7 weeks)
• Three in-person office visits required
• Supervision by a qualified physician
• All adverse events must be reported

As time went on, the FDA either removed or laxed all of those requirements – not because the pill became less dangerous, but because it would increase profits for the abortion industry and make abortion more accessible during the pandemic and beyond.

“The FDA has turned chemical abortion into self-managed abortion, which is dangerous for women. Under the FDA’s anemic safety standards, women are expected to accurately diagnose the gestational age of unexpected pregnancies with woefully inadequate tools, self-administer abortion-inducing drugs, dispose of fetal remains themselves, and go to the emergency room when foreseeable and fully preventable serious medical complications occur. The removal of doctors from the chemical abortion process, the increasing span of gestational age for prescription, and the removal of key adverse event reporting requirements only serve two objectives – maximum abortion access and pharmaceutical profit – at the expense of women’s health.” (emphasis added)

The brief goes on to list ten compelling arguments in favor of holding the FDA accountable for their arbitrary and capricious actions, focusing heavily on the inherent danger associated with chemical abortions. Click here to read the amicus curiae brief in full.