Michigan Rep. Natalie Price (D-Berkley) wishes her grandmother, known as Grandma Jean, would have had access to mifepristone when she needed an abortion in 1941.
But, decades before Roe v. Wade, Price’s grandmother did not have the medication often referred to as the abortion pill.
Rep. Natalie Price (D-Berkley)
speaks on the Michigan House floor on April 13, 2023 to condemn a federal judge’s decision to overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. | Screenshot
“Her only option was a physically invasive, unhygienic, unsafe, self-administered procedure,” Price said while giving a speech on the House floor Thursday. “The complications endangered my grandmother’s life and resulted in a diagnosis of permanent infertility. My Grandma Jean was fortunate to live, and she was eventually able to have children. However, not everyone has been so lucky.”
The world changed dramatically after her grandmother’s experience. Access to safe abortion expanded. A 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling established abortion as a constitutional right. A couple decades later, in 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Mifeprex, the brand name version of mifepristone, an abortion pill that allows a person to terminate a pregnancy without having surgery. The medication is also used to aid a pregnant person experiencing a miscarriage and is approved to treat Cushing’s syndrome.
But access to abortion has rapidly deteriorated following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June 2022 to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, leaving each individual state to set its own abortion laws.
In Michigan, the right to abortion is enshrined in the state Constitution with Proposal 3 of 2022, which codified the right to abortion and other reproductive health care, passed by a 13-point margin in the Nov. 8 election. It secured 57% of the vote.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also recently signed legislation repealing the 1931 law that banned abortion in the state.
As an increasing number of states ban or limit abortions, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump in Texas, ruled on April 7 to overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.
It was the decision from Kacsmaryk that prompted Price to introduce a resolution on Thursday condemning the Texas judge’s ruling and denouncing “all efforts to limit access to abortion in Michigan and throughout the country.”
House Resolution 72 passed 56-51 along party lines, with only Democrats supporting it and no Republican voting for it on Thursday. The resolution was co-sponsored by 43 Democratic lawmakers.
There’s been a flurry of judicial rulings since Kacsmaryk’s decision.
Minutes after the Texas decision, a Washington state judge ruled the FDA cannot change how it regulates the abortion pill in the 17 states, including Michigan, that signed onto Washington v. FDA. An appeals court in New Orleans on Wednesday partly blocked that order, leaving the pill available across the country for now. Democratic elected officials and lawyers have emphasized the abortion medication remains safe and legal in Michigan.
U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocks limits to abortion pill access
But on Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked Kacsmaryk’s ruling, halting any changes in access to the abortion medication mifepristone from taking effect until Wednesday at midnight.
No Republican lawmakers spoke publicly on Price’s resolution. Republican Reps. Timothy Beson (R-Bay City), William Bruck (R-Erie) and Curt VanderWall (R-Ludington) were absent during Thursday’s House session.
The Texas judge’s decision to overturn the FDA’s approval was not “grounded in law, science or in the interest of protecting maternal health,” Price said on the House floor.
Instead, Price said the ruling was a “blatant, politically motivated decision and another example of right-wing” judges “legislating from the bench that trounces upon a woman’s right to an abortion and ultimately ignores the will of the vast majority of Americans who believe abortion should be legal, including Michiganders who voted overwhelmingly to enshrine reproductive rights in their state constitution this past November.”
Prices’s resolution notes that mifepristone has been used by more than 5.6 million people, according to the FDA, to safely end their pregnancies in the United States.
“Mifepristone provides an alternative to procedural abortion and affords patients privacy during the process,” the resolution states.
The House Democrats’ condemnation of the Texas judge’s ruling comes as Democratic leaders across the state and country have issued vehement criticism of the decision, including President Joe Biden and Whitmer. The U.S. Justice Department launched an appeals process immediately following the April 7 decision, which could end with a landmark ruling on access to medication abortion from the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Despite the legal quagmire we find ourselves in, it is evident that self-managed, medication abortion — namely mifepristone and misoprostol — is a safe and effective way to end an early pregnancy,” state Sen. Erika Geiss (D-Taylor) said in a prepared statement. “Furthermore, people have been self-managing abortion care for as long as abortion has existed. Due to an increasingly hostile legal landscape, more people may self-manage their care without safe and federally approved options like mifepristone.
“The real risk to people who are self-managing abortion is legal, not medical,” added Geiss, a longtime champion of abortion rights who led efforts to overturn Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban.
L-R: U.S. Reps. Tim Walberg, Lisa McClain and John Moolenaar | official photos
Michigan Republicans have remained largely silent on the Texas judge’s ruling; no state GOP lawmaker has issued any formal statement regarding it. But at the federal level, U.S. Reps. Lisa McClain (R-Bruce Twp.), John Moolenaar (R-Midland) and Tim Walberg (R-Tipton) joined a group of 69 congressional Republicans who filed a brief in the appeals case backing the Texas judge’s ruling.
“By approving and deregulating chemical abortion drugs, the FDA has not followed Congress’ statutorily prescribed drug approval process and has subverted Congress’ critical public policy interests in upholding patient welfare,” the GOP lawmakers wrote.
The vote on Price’s resolution followed Democratic legislators passing gun reform legislation that would permit a court to order the temporary removal of guns from someone who may be a danger to themselves or others, colloquially referred to as red flag laws.
Following the adoption of the resolution on Thursday, Price took to social media and noted she gave her speech advocating for the right to abortion “in honor of my Grandma Jean, and all others who have been denied access to safe abortion care.
“We will keep fighting for this basic right here in Michigan,” Price wrote on social media.
authored by Anna Gustafson
First published at https%3A%2F%2Fmichiganadvance.com%2F2023%2F04%2F15%2Fdemocratic-led-house-adopts-resolution-condemning-texas-judges-abortion-pill-ruling%2F
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