HOUSTON – An organization held a protest in front of a Montrose-area Walgreens on Saturday following a federal judge’s decision to put a hold on the federal approval of mifepristone overnight Friday.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, on Friday ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval, as reported by the Associated Press. His ruling, which doesn’t take immediate effect, came practically at the same time that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, essentially ordered the opposite in a different case in Washington. KPRC2 legal analyst Brian Wice said the split likely puts the issue on an accelerated path to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“If I had to predict what would happen in the short run I believe that the conservative 5th Circuit of Appeals will likely uphold Judge Kacsmaryk’s order and that the liberal 9th Circuit of Appeals will uphold Judge Rice’s order,” Rice said. “That will set in motion the ultimate constitutional showdown in the United States Supreme Court in the not too distance future.”
Wice said the Supreme Court, which has a six-to-three conservative majority, may in the end rule in favor of Judge Kacsmaryk.
“Given the makeup of that court with a super conservative majority, it’s all together likely that the Supreme Court can do what Judge Kacsmaryk did and second guess the professionals at the FDA and conclude that after two plus decades a drug that literally hundreds of thousands of women have taken is no longer fit for public consumption,” Wice added.
“The ruling today withdrawing FDA approval of mifepristone by Judge Kacsmaryk is an outrageous and illegitimate violation of women’s fundamental right to abortion and their very humanity,” said Sunsara Taylor, Co-initiator of RiseUpForAbortionRights.org. “Kacsmaryk has arrogantly replaced scientific expertise about mifepristone with anti-scientific bigotry and violated the very humanity of women by strengthening the hand of the state to force women to bear children against their will.”
Protestors gathered at the corner of Montrose and Lovett Blvd. to express their opposition to the ruling.
One group, a group of five with Rise Up for Abortion Rights stood on the corner of Montrose and Lovett with signs for a hour and a half this afternoon to oppose the ruling.
“We’re here today to make sure that women still have a right to choose to govern their bodies the way that they see fit. If they want to terminate an unwanted pregnancy it’s her body, her right to choose,” said Sonia King with Rise Up for Abortion Rights.
On the other side of the issue, Amy O’Donnell with Texas Alliance for Life.
“We applaud the judge’s action to issue a stay on the chemical abortion drug mifepristone. And the reason for that is if the FDA did in fact fast track that approval without putting it through the right safety testing and protocols and then especially without good tracking of the data for complications, then women’s lives in the United States have been at an immense risk,” O’Donnell said.
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