Abortion Pills In NJ: Mikie Sherrill Blasts 'Attack On Women’s Rights'

MONTCLAIR, NJ — What’s “judge shopping,” and how does it impact the right to an abortion in New Jersey? That’s the question U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill hoped to raise when she hosted a panel discussion at the Planned Parenthood Montclair Health Center on Thursday.

The congresswoman – who represents Montclair and other North Jersey towns in the 11th District – was joined by several health and legal experts at the event, which was held to discuss the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration decision in Texas (watch the video below).

The court decision suspends the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decades-long approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in combination to end pregnancies. The groups suing the FDA to overturn mifepristone’s approval have argued that the agency used an improper process to evaluate the drug and failed to consider its safety in minors.

However, a similar court case in Washington ruled that the FDA’s approval of mifepristone was appropriate because the drug is safe and effective, and that the agency shouldn’t hinder access to mifepristone in 17 states and the District of Columbia.

Appeals are pending in both cases, which could end up getting bumped to the U.S. Supreme Court. Read More: DOJ To Ask Supreme Court To Put Abortion Pill Limits On Hold

More than half of all abortions in the U.S. are performed with medication as opposed to surgery, Sherrill pointed out. As such, the court ruling has the potential to “threaten nationwide access to abortion,” even in states with strong reproductive freedom laws like New Jersey, she said.

“This decision is another step in the far-right’s agenda to attack women’s rights, threaten our lives and diminish our economic future,” Sherrill said Thursday. “That’s why today, I’m announcing new legislation that I will be introducing in the coming days to prevent something referred to as ‘judge shopping.’”

According to Sherrill:

“Increasingly, conservative activists file lawsuits in single-judge divisions where they are all but assured to get a favorable ruling. That was the playbook anti-choice advocates followed by filing this case in the Amarillo division of the Northern District of Texas.”

Jeanne LoCicero, legal director of the ACLU’s New Jersey chapter, said the Texas decision incited “legal chaos” that spiraled on a national level.

“Overnight, the Fifth Circuit considered the Department of Justice’s request to put on hold the trial court’s decision,” LoCicero said. “What the appeals court did was it pared back the district court’s ruling, but really endorsed a lot of the thinking in the district judge’s decision.”

“Within the last hour or so, we’ve heard that the Attorney General is planning to make an emergency request to the Supreme Court to put a hold on the decision and the implementation of it,” LoCicero added. “What we do know is that if the current rulings stay in place, mifepristone is going to be severely restricted.”

If that happens, it will directly harm patients seeking an abortion in the Garden State, according to Dr. Elizabeth Talmont, chief project officer at Planned Parenthood of Northern, Central and Southern New Jersey.

“Mifepristone has been safely and effectively used by five million people in this country since its FDA approval in 2000,” Talmont said. “There is overwhelming evidence that this is safe and effective for anybody who wants it, with over a 99% safety profile. What is happening in the courts has nothing to do with safety nor the efficacy of medication.”

Roslyn Rogers Collins, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Metropolitan New Jersey, said that in the months since the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial decision on abortion rights last year, she has often been asked about what keeps her up at night.

“My resounding response has been, ‘What’s next?’” she said. “Even in states like New Jersey where abortion remains safe, legal, and available without restrictions, it is clear that there is an agenda to dismantle all access around the country.”

According to Joseph Chiodo III, vice president of medical affairs at Agile Therapeutics, a drug must go through a rigorous process to get FDA approval. And putting the brakes on judge shopping can help reverse a “dangerous precedent,” he said.

“Unfortunately, this is setting the stage for a single individual that is second guessing scientific decisions made by a rigorous team at the FDA,” Chiodo said. “This is not what we want as a society, where we have political motives and judges making clinical and scientific decisions.”

Supporters of the Texas court decision have stuck to their guns, however.

“The FDA’s approval of these dangerous chemical abortion drugs stands in direct violation of the right to life and [inherent] dignity each of us has from the moment of conception,” president of the Catholic Medical Association Craig Treptow said earlier this week.

• Read More: Some U.S. States Stock Abortion Medications After Court Ruling
• Read More: Walgreens Will Continue To Sell Alternative Abortion Pill: Report

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