NY Leaders Scramble To Protect Abortion Pill Access

NEW YORK CITY — A federal judge's controversial ruling set New York's leaders into a mad scramble this week to protect their pledge that the city and state will be "safe harbor" for abortion access in a post-Roe world.

New York City officials joined a wide-ranging legal filing Tuesday that argued a Texas federal judge's hold on Food and Drug Administration approval of an abortion drug called mifepristone is not only based on junk science, but could overwhelm public health systems.

The filing — known as an amicus brief — was made by the city, Los Angeles County and other counties with the large public hospital systems. Without access to mifespristone, pregnant patients will suffer and already-burdened hospitals will be stretched even thinner, the brief argues.

"If the court suspends the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, it will immediately harm pregnant women who will be forced to seek more invasive or less effective care," said Sylvia Hinds-Radix, corporation counsel for New York City, in a statement. "That burden would be disproportionately borne by the most vulnerable individuals in our communities and further stress overburdened public health-care systems across the country."

Mifepristone has been used for more than 20 years under FDA approval as part of a two-drug regimen to end pregnancies.

But last week U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, put that in doubt when he ordered a hold on that approval. The situation was complicated when another U.S. District Court judge in Washington effectively ordered the opposite in a near-simultaneous ruling.

The back-to-back competing orders underscored the precarious status of legal abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. U.S. Department of Justice officials appealed the Kacmaryk's ruling Monday.

They weren't alone.

Beyond the amicus brief joined by New York City, state Attorney General Letitia James and several of her colleagues challenged the ruling.

"The decision to halt the FDA’s longstanding approval of mifepristone was clearly misguided and not based on science or medical research," James said in a statement. "Restricting access to a medication that has been proven safe over decades of research harms public health and rights of millions of Americans."

Gov. Kathy Hochul also announced this week that she'd take steps to protect access to abortion pills in New York. She said the state will buy 150,000 doses of misoprostol, which is used in conjunction with mifepristone to end pregnancies but can be used on its own in medication abortions.

"Anti-choice extremists have shown that they are not stopping at overturning Roe, and they are working to entirely dismantle our country's reproductive health care system, including medication abortion and contraception," Hochul said in a statement. "New York will always be a safe harbor for abortion care, and I am taking action to protect abortion access in our State and continue to lead the nation in defending the right to reproductive autonomy."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.