Los Angeles leaders address controversial abortion pill ruling

LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Monday addressed a controversial ruling that rescinded the FDA's approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, the most commonly used method of abortion in the U.S.

According to Planned Parenthood, mifepristone is used in more than half of abortion procedures nationwide and has been hued as a safe, effective method of abortion for more than two decades. 

"We want to make sure that in Los Angeles everyone knows they have the right to health care in every form and we also send the message to women around the country that California is a place where you can come to receive health care," Mayor Bass said.

"This Texas decision is a disgrace. It has no immediate impact on abortion and reproductive health services here in LA County," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell.

Jessica Levinson, a Loyola law school professor, weighed in on the issue.

"What the judge did was suspend the approval of mifepristone and implement a preliminary injunction that applies nationwide. He also paused that preliminary injunction for a week, allowing the Department of Justice and others to appeal. Those appeals are already pending. There's a lot in the judge's decision but the punchline really is that this one judge in Texas said the FDA should not have approved mifepristone, again, almost a quarter of a century ago," said Levinson.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. But that decision came at nearly the same time that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an Obama appointee, essentially ordered the opposite and directed U.S. authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats sued in an effort to protect availability.

"That ruling applies to 17 states and the District of Columbia. There are potentially legally technical ways to comply with both rulings but they absolutely point in opposite directions. For that reason, I think the Supreme Court might have to step in and tell us nationwide what is the answer," Levinson said. "In the very short term, nothing changes. In the midterm, we're not sure, it depends on the appeals, and in the long term, it probably depends on what the Supreme Court is gonna say."

The whiplash of the conflicting decisions is likely to put the issue on an accelerated path to the Supreme Court.

Jonathan Keller, the President for the California Family Council also spoke, and supports the suspension.  

"This is a huge case and it will have an impact, even on California. We are cautiously encouraged that this is going to save the lives of unborn children," said Keller.

Keller protested the initial approval.

"I actually protested the initial approval of the pill, if you can believe it, all the way back in 2001 on the steps of the FDA. I was a part of a small group of pro-life advocates that did a prayer vigil there and for the last 22 years, we've been concerned that this has made abortion dramatically easier to obtain. We certainly hope that this case has an impact in the state of California but with leaders like Gavin Newsom, we obviously are concerned that they are much more committed to providing abortion than they are to following the law," said Keller. 

The abortion drug has been widely used in the U.S. since securing FDA approval and there is essentially no precedent for a lone judge overruling the medical decisions of the Food and Drug Administration. Mifepristone is one of two drugs used for medication abortion in the United States, along with misoprostol, which is also used to treat other medical conditions.

Kacsmaryk signed an injunction directing the FDA to stay mifepristone’s approval while a lawsuit challenging the safety and approval of the drug continues. His 67-page order gave the government seven days to appeal. 

Clinics and doctors that prescribe the two-drug combination have said that if mifepristone were pulled from the market, they would switch to using only the second drug, misoprostol. That single-drug approach has a slightly lower rate of effectiveness in ending pregnancies, but it is widely used in countries where mifepristone is illegal or unavailable.

Mifepristone has been used by millions of women over the past 23 years, and complications from mifepristone occur at a lower rate than that seen with wisdom teeth removal, colonoscopies and other routine medical procedures, medical groups have recently noted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.