Minnesota officials warn Texas ruling on abortion drug mifepristone could affect people here

MINNEAPOLIS -- A Texas ruling suspending FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone has abortion right supporters warning the drugs supply could be affected here in Minnesota. 

State lawmakers and Gov. Tim Walz spoke out against the ruling, warning it could impact Minnesota even though abortion is legal in this state. Walz pointed to the fact that mifepristone has been FDA-approved since the year 2000.

"This is the textbook definition of an activist judge who made a decision against 22 years of science, procedure, and precedents," Walz said.

Lawmakers are calling for the immediate passage in the Minnesota legislature of a bill called the Reproductive Freedom Codification Act, which is making its way through House and Senate Committees.

Meanwhile, opponents of abortion are hailing the Texas decision.

"The ruling in Texas is great news for women and babies," Cathy Blaeser, Co-Executive Director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said. "Judge Kacsmaryk is right to recognize the major flaws in mifepristone's approval process and to take this dangerous drug off the market before it harms more women and girls."

For now, abortion rights supporters -- including lawmakers and Walz -- say the supply of abortion drugs (including mifepristone) in Minnesota is adequate, but they say that is not something they can guarantee long-term.

On Monday, the Justice Department formally asked a federal appeals court to put on hold the judge's order, calling the ruling "extraordinary and unprecedented."

The Biden administration is appealing Friday's ruling from U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk and requested the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to freeze his decision while proceedings continue. 

"The district court's extraordinary and unprecedented order should be stayed pending appeal," Justice Department lawyers wrote in their filing to the 5th Circuit, indicating that they're prepared to seek relief from the Supreme Court if necessary.

The Biden administration argued that the November legal challenge to the FDA's 2000 approval of mifepristone is "manifestly untimely" and said the group of anti-abortion rights physicians and medical associations that targeted access to the drug lack the legal standing to challenge the FDA's approval of mifepristone, which they neither take nor prescribe.

Medication abortions accounted for more than half of all abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Biden administration told the 5th Circuit that serious adverse events are rare when mifepristone is used as directed by the FDA. More than 5 million women have take mifepristone since 2000, and only 28 deaths were reported through June 2022, though some were associated were "obvious alternative causes" unrelated to use of the abortion pill, according to the FDA.