The Plaintiffs Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill Admitted They Have No Case – By David S Cohen, Greer Donley and Rachel Rebouche (Slate) / Mar 21 2023
There are so many problems with the federal case in Texas challenging the approval of mifepristone, the first of two drugs given as part of a medication abortion. On the procedural side of things, just to name a few, the statute of limitations has long run out, the plaintiffs have not exhausted their administrative remedies, they haven’t identified a provision of law that has been violated, and their claimed injury makes no sense. On substance, again just to name a few, mifepristone is one of the safest drugs on the market, pregnancy is a medical condition for which the FDA can approve drugs, and the act on which the case relies has been basically a dead letter for a century. This case really is frivolous and should garner no real attention.
But, of course, we’re talking about this case repeatedly because of the real fear that the plaintiffs successfully hand-picked one of the few federal judges in the country who will ignore all this and rule in their favor. So, there is no such thing as giving this case too much scrutiny. And in that vein, it’s worth explaining how the release of the transcript from last Wednesday’s argument reveals yet another flaw with the case—lack of redressability—that should end the case immediately.
To understand this problem, we have to first understand the harm that plaintiffs are alleging that they suffer. Every litigant who comes into federal court needs to establish that they are injured in some way. Here, plaintiffs are doctors who claim that mifepristone leads to them having to treat patients with complications. Put aside for our purposes here just how insane that argument is—doctors treat people with complications related to medicine all the time, it’s their job. For now though, just appreciate that this is their claimed harm.
CONTINUE > https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/03/abortion-pill-mifepristone-misoprostol-ban-fail.html
