News
Featured Image
 Shutterstock

CHARLESTON, West Virginia (LifeSiteNews) – A pharmaceutical company responsible for making a generic form of the abortion drug mifepristone filed a lawsuit against West Virginia, arguing that the state’s restrictions on abortion negatively impacted the company’s bottom line and overrides regulations put in place by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA).

GenBioPro filed the suit Wednesday, arguing that the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, the first pill in a two-pill medical abortion regimen, overrides West Virginia’s abortion restrictions because of the power given to the FDA by Congress as well as the Supremacy and Commerce Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, along with misoprostol, the second pill in the two-pill medical abortion regimen, up to the 10th week of pregnancy.

The suit also holds that restrictions placed on mifepristone affect GenBioPro’s bottom line, arguing that West Virginia’s abortion restrictions pose a “significant, ongoing economic injury” to the company, alleging that West Virginia’s limitations on abortion have resulted in “lost sales, customers, and revenue.”

“Our case makes clear that nothing in the court’s decision last year in [the Dobbs decision] displaced Congress and FDA’s role in deciding whether medications are safe and effective and determining which regulations should be imposed on mifepristone,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a left-leaning legal services and public policy research organization that serves as counsel for GenBioPro.

“States cannot substitute their medical and scientific judgments for judgments FDA has made, and doing so undermines not only access to medication but the country’s entire drug regulation system.”

Responding to the suit, West Virginia Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement on Wednesday that his office is “prepared to defend West Virginia’s new abortion law to the fullest.”

“While it may not sit well with manufacturers of abortion drugs, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that regulating abortion is a state issue,” Morrisey said. “I will stand strong for the life of the unborn and will not relent in our defense of this clearly constitutional law.”

Last September, West Virginia passed a law that banned nearly all abortions in the state, with exceptions for rape, incest, and when the life of the mother could be threatened.

The lawsuit is one of several dealing with the FDA’s rules regarding mifepristone.

North Carolina physician Dr. Amy Bryant also filed a lawsuit in her state on Wednesday, arguing that the state’s requirement for a doctor to be in the room while mifepristone is being administered, as well as counselling before mifepristone is administered, contradicts the FDA’s approved labeling for the drug and interferes with her ability to treat patients.

Meanwhile, a group of pro-life doctors in Texas filed a suit in November against the FDA seeking to overturn the agency’s approval of abortion pills.

The lawsuit also comes after the FDA changed its rules regarding abortion pills earlier this month, allowing them to be sold at retail pharmacies across America, effectively turning pharmacies into abortion mills.

The states of Florida and South Dakota have both clarified that the rule change does not change state laws forbidding pharmacies in those states to distribute abortion medication, and 22 states attorneys general wrote a letter to FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf earlier this month urging the agency to rescind its new rule.

5 Comments

    Loading...