CNN
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Missouri, Kansas and Idaho can continue their lawsuit aimed at restricting access to the abortion drug mifepristone, a federal judge ruled Thursday, months after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a earlier version of the legal challenge.
The ruling by Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, appointed by President-elect Donald Trump, will allow Republican-led states to pick up where a lawsuit filed by private anti-abortion activists left off after the Supreme Court declared the last year that these activists lacked standing to bring a legal challenge.
In the amended complaint approved by Kacsmaryk, the states argued that certain actions taken by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made it easier for mifepristone to flow across their borders, thereby undermining their own abortion restrictions.
Idaho, for example, bans abortion in most cases, while some restrictions on medication abortion remain in Kansas and Missouri, even after voters approved ballot initiatives protecting abortion rights .
They challenge FDA rules that allow the drug to be obtained by mail without an in-person doctor’s visit, as well as the FDA’s approval of the generic version of the drug and other changes in recent years in how whose medicine is used. medication may be prescribed.
In the new order, Kacsmaryk dismissed arguments from FDA defenders who said its Amarillo, Texas, courtroom was an inappropriate venue for the case because the states’ claims were unrelated with its judicial district. The judge said he will consider those arguments more fully in the next phase of the case, when regulatory advocates, including mifepristone maker Danco, have a chance to seek dismissal of the lawsuit.
The timing of Kacsmaryk’s order, just days before the inauguration, means it will be Trump’s Justice Department, not the current administration, that will decide how to handle the next stage of the affair. Last year, the Biden administration defended the FDA’s regulatory approach to mifepristone at the Supreme Court.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a CNN inquiry into the matter.
Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, when asked about the DOJ’s policy of defending FDA regulations during her Senate confirmation hearing this week, said she should do more research. She also vowed not to let her personal anti-abortion views influence her actions as head of the department.
The decision by anti-abortion activists to file the initial case in Amarillo has sparked accusations of “shopping” because nearly all of the cases filed there are attributed to Kacsmaryk, who, before joining the bench, worked for an advocacy organization. legal defense focused on conservative social causes. In a 2023 decision later overturned by higher courts, Kacsmaryk said the drug’s decades-old FDA approval should be erased entirely.