Attorney General Ken Paxton today joined 10 states in a friend-of-the-court brief requesting that the United States Supreme Court stay an injunction that suspended important health and safety requirements imposed by federal law for the prescription of mifepristone - a drug that causes an abortion. Currently, federal and state laws require physical examinations and in-person dispensing of mifepristone to ensure that physicians examine the patient and inform them of the significant risks to her body, including infection, hemorrhage, and death.
“The COVID-19 pandemic only reinforces the need to follow reasonable guidelines when prescribing potentially dangerous or life-threatening medications. To argue otherwise is to disregard women’s health and safety in the name of convenience,” said Attorney General Paxton. “This medication is strictly required to be dispensed in-person due to the serious risks it poses.”
The use of abortion medications without close physician supervision presents severe risks to women’s health and safety. Mifepristone is approved strictly through ten weeks of pregnancy, with later use involving a higher risk of failure, infection, and endangering the patient’s life.
Read a copy of the amicus brief here.