HARTFORD, Conn. — Two conflicting rulings announced Friday on the use of a commonly used medication to end early-term abortions are stirring uncertainty in Connecticut's leaders about whether the medication would remain legally accessible in the United States.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice in Washington state partially granted a request from 17 states and the District of Columbia. While the states sued in an effort to expand access to the pill, Rice did not go that far — instead, he blocked the FDA from making any changes to the drug’s access in the states that sued.
The Justice Department swiftly gave notice it would appeal the Texas ruling and said it was reviewing the decision from Washington.
Now, Connecticut's leaders are speaking out in support of keeping mifepristone legally available.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has vowed to protect women's health and reproduction rights while in office. He said of the Texas ruling Friday,
“This ruling is yet another devasting [sic] attack on reproductive rights. Pills such as mifepristone allow you to decide when you want to start a family, not the government. This case is not about safety. This is about controlling medical decisions that should be between patients and their doctors. We will not let this decision derail our fight to defend and strengthen abortion rights. In Connecticut, we remain committed to expanding access to reproductive healthcare, including allowing pharmacists to prescribe birth control and protecting both patients and providers who seek and offer that care.”
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Attorney General William Tong touted the safety of abortion pill use, as mifepristone was approved by the FDA in 2000, and has since helped as many as five million people access safe early-term abortions and management of miscarriages, according to Tong's office.
In 2022, over 9,500 abortions were performed in Connecticut, with around 64% of them using mifepristone, according to Tong's office.
Tong reaffirmed that access to abortion and mediation abortion will still be available in Connecticut after the ruling in Texas. He released a statement Friday, saying,
"Abortion — including medication abortion— is safe and legal in Connecticut tonight and I’m fighting with everything I’ve got to keep it that way, and to keep out of state extremists out of our private healthcare decisions. The Texas decision has zero basis in science, fact, or the law. It substitutes one reactionary judge’s political determination for more than 20 years of scientific evidence and threatens access to medication abortion nationwide. This is precisely the dangerous and radical decision we feared, and why I joined with my fellow Attorneys General to launch our own defense of medication abortion in federal court in Washington state. Because we must fight fire with fire. And a decision in that case— also handed down tonight— preserves access to medication abortion in plaintiff states, including Connecticut. I will never back down, and we are going to keep taking this fight to those who attack women and patients and their fundamental rights."
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U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal expressed concern that the ruling in Texas would lead to a national ban on medication abortion. He released a statement Friday, saying,
“If allowed to go into effect, this ruling is tantamount to a nationwide ban on the most common form of abortion care. This medication has been used safely and effectively for twenty years with FDA approval for both abortion care and miscarriage management, now recklessly overruled by a single activist judge in Texas. This opinion would restrict the freedom of doctors and prescribers who want to provide reproductive care and every American patient who seeks to receive it. Under this ruling, Connecticut providers would no longer be able to treat Connecticut patients according to what has been the standard of care for twenty years. Republicans like to say they believe decisions about abortion should be left up to individual states, but that’s a lie – their goal, partially realized by today’s opinion, is to force the entire country to live by their draconian restrictions on reproductive care."
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U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy released a statement Saturday saying,
“This decision is just the latest effort in the right’s coordinated campaign to strip away women’s rights. It’s no surprise that a Republican judge handpicked by a conservative group to hear this case ruled to advance an anti-choice agenda that is deeply unpopular with the American people. Millions of women – even in states like Connecticut where the right to abortion is protected – could now be denied access to a safe, effective medication that has been on the market for decades. We cannot allow right-wing judges to ignore the science, and put the health, safety, and autonomy of millions of women at risk.”
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Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro released a statement Saturday, saying,
“This decision disrespects women, treating them like second-class citizens and not trusting them to make their own health care decisions. This ruling goes against science. It has been longer than 20 years since the FDA first approved mifepristone as safe for abortion care. In fact, more than half of the abortions performed in the United States are medication abortions and 98 percent of those abortions require safe access to mifepristone. Not only does this decision undermine the integrity of the FDA approval process and threatens access to all-FDA approved drugs, it strips American women of access to a safe and effective health care option. We should be expanding access to health care, not limiting it. We cannot let this stand.”
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