ACLU Comment on Fifth Circuit Argument in Medication Abortion Case

NEW YORK — The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments today in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, a case in which the plaintiffs are seeking to remove mifepristone — a medication that is used in most abortions in the country — off the shelves nationwide. After listening to the arguments, Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, issued the following statement:

“The arguments today demonstrated in detail that the case has no legal or scientific merit and should have been laughed out of court from the very start. Unfortunately, the deck is stacked as the judges hearing this case are well known for their extraordinary hostility to abortion. As the arguments today made clear, the whole point of the case is to prevent anyone in America, no matter where they live, from using a medication that has been safely used in this country for decades and is used in most abortions today. We knew that those who want to stop women from making their own decisions about pregnancy, wouldn’t stop with the reversal of Roe v. Wade and this case is the next step in their plan to ban abortion nationwide.”