03.26.2024 / Statement

Once again, extremist activists are after our health, democracy, and reproductive rights

Yael Lehmann, Interim Executive Director of Families USA, issued the following statement on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) hearing oral arguments today in the mifepristone case. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first approved mifepristone more than 20 years ago. It remains a safe and effective drug for use in medication abortion, utilized in almost two-thirds of all abortion procedures nationwide.

Today’s oral arguments underscored that extremist activists will stop at nothing when it comes to imposing their ideology on families all across America, this time by attacking the FDA’s scientific gold-standard approval process for pharmaceuticals. The ramifications of this case could run far beyond mifepristone – potentially undermining drug innovation and threatening the development and approval of lifesaving medicines, causing patients’ lives to hang in the balance.

As part of their relentless assault on our health and reproductive freedoms, ideological zealots have calculatingly selected courts with judges that match their hostile energy towards reproductive health to hear this meritless case and advance their abortion ban agenda nationwide. Now, the future health and safety of millions of people in America once again lies in the hands of the Supreme Court.

This appalling lawsuit was filed with blatant disregard for our rights to access safe and effective medication and flies in the face of what the public wants, with two-thirds of American voters in support of abortion pills remaining accessible. Changes in mifepristone prescription or distribution could harm over 64.5 million women of reproductive age, with disproportionately negative impacts on people with low incomes and Black women, even as they continue to face a devastating maternal mortality crisis in this country. And should these extremist activists prevail in this case, a dangerous and deadly precedent will be set for everyone in America