LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The abortion drug Mifepristone has been given new life with the help of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. After Trump-appointed Texas U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk  ruled on April 7th to suspend the use of the drug because the FDA violated standards by rushing through the drug’s approval process 23 years ago, the Biden administration appealed the ruling.

On Wednesday, the 5th Circuit, in a 2-1 vote, preserved the use of the medication with tighter rules according to the Associated Press. Those rules include that the medication can’t be dispensed through the mail. Last year, the FDA had lifted the in-person requirement for the abortion pill and allowed patients to access the drug through online pharmacies and telehealth appointments. The court also ruled that the drug can only be given to women who are at the most seven weeks into gestation. The old rule was ten.

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The AP reports, “The latest order means that the FDA’s original approval of mifepristone more than two decades ago is still in effect, but the agency’s relaxing of the rules surrounding the drug in 2016 is placed on hold.”

It is expected that the case will eventually end up in the Supreme Court either on behalf of the Biden-Harris administration or the Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative legal group that had originally filed the case and also had a hand in helping to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

Alliance Defending Freedom filed their lawsuit in Texas in November of 2022 against the FDA and the U.S. Health and Human Services Dept. on behalf of four doctors and four anti-abortion groups. They claim the drug is dangers and that the FDA didn’t have the authority to approve the drug. In a statement to the Independent, Alliance for Defending Freedom’s senior counsel Julie Marie Blake said the FDA-approved abortion drugs pose “serious and life-threatening complications” to patients, despite evidence from major medical groups showing otherwise.

Mifepristone is combined with another drug, misoprostol, to induce an abortion. While Mifepristone stops the pregnancy, misoprostol empties the uterus. Abortion pills are the most common method of ending pregnancy in the United States and accounts for about 54% of all abortions in the country.

In response to the decision to halt the use of the abortion drug by the Texas judge, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer had said in a statement, “Today, an extreme federal judge in Texas who is out-of-step with the majority of Michiganders and Americans has attempted to ban mifepristone, one of the most common abortion medications that has been approved by the FDA, prescribed, and safety used for decades.”

Many in the media, including NBC, The Boston Globe, and the New York Times have called the terminology used in the Texas case “rhetoric,” “partisan” and “extremist.” They chide the judge’s use of the words “unborn child” or “unborn human” instead of the word “fetus.” They also take issue with the phrase “to kill the unborn human” that the judge used.

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More than 300 pharmaceutical executives, including the head of Pfizer, have asked for the Texas decision to be reversed saying that it disregarded scientific evidence. Their letter says, “We call for the reversal of this decision to disregard science, and the appropriate restitution of the mandate for the safety and efficacy of medicines for all with the FDA, the agency entrusted to do so in the first place.”

The letter goes on to say, “If courts can overturn drug approvals without regard to science or evidence, or for the complexity required to fully vet the safety and efficacy of new drugs, any medicine is at work for the same outcome as mifepristone.”