Abortion Pills Remain Legal In IL After Judge's Ruling, Officials Say

ILLINOIS — Abortion medication remains legal in Illinois despite a Friday ruling from a Texas judge ordering the government to halt approval of the drugs used to terminate a pregnancy, officials said.

U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk's decision to suspend the FDA's approval of mifepristone was met almost simultaneously with another judge's ruling ordering the FDA to not make any changes that would restrict access to the drug allowed in 17 states and D.C.

Illinois is among the 18 states in the country to have proactively filed a lawsuit that preserves access to mifepristone for patients around the state. The suit keeps the abortion drug legal in Illinois despite the judge’s decision in Texas, according to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

“Patients in Illinois will be able to continue to have access to mifepristone as a method of abortion and miscarriage management while our lawsuit continues,” Raoul said in a statement released on Friday after the judge’s decision.”

“Let me also be clear: Abortion remains safe and legal in Illinois. The providers who work every day to meet the needs of their patients and provide quality reproductive health care have my appreciation and support.”

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday called the Texas judge’s ruling a “dangerous decision” and cited the 22 years that the FDA has determined mifepristone to be safe. He said that the ruling goes against “precedent and science”, the governor said, adding that the ruling determines that doctors have been doing their job wrong for decades.

Pritzker said in the statement that the court ruling in Texas changes nothing in Illinois as far as the legality of the abortion pill.

“Despite these attacks, reproductive rights are enshrined in Illinois law and will stay that way,” Pritzker said on Friday. “This ruling is a clear and concerted effort by anti-abortion, far-right activists and politicians to dismantle sexual and reproductive health care nationwide. We will not let them win."

Last year, Planned Parenthood of Illinois said that it would offer the abortion pill through the mail as a way of providing affordable access to the medication to women across the state. The decision came before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood officials said that offering the pill through the mail breaks down “unnecessary barriers to healthcare.”

Jennifer Welch, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Illinois, said that Illinois has provided abortion services to women from 34 states since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court last summer. Welch said the organization will continue to provide mifepristone as a way of helping women seeking to end pregnancies.

“That just means more people will have more financial hardships,” Welch said in a statement last week. “We know the medical system in the United States disproportionately harms Black and Brown people in our country. So not only is it an attack on people who can get pregnant but also an extra hardship for people who’ve been underrepresented by the medical system.”

Mifepristone has been used widely in the U.S. since 2000 when it was first approved by the FDA. It is a two-drug regimen, used along with misoprostol to stop a pregnancy. It is also the most common form of abortion and miscarriage management.