Washington state has purchased a three-year supply of a leading abortion medication in anticipation of a court ruling that could limit its availability, Washington Governor Jay Inslee said on Tuesday.
The Democratic governor said he ordered the Washington Department of Corrections, which has a pharmacy license, to buy 30,000 doses of the generic version of mifepristone at a cost of about US$1.28 million, or US$42.50 per pill.
The shipment arrived late last month.
Photo: AP
A two-pill combination of mifepristone and misoprostol is the most common form of abortion in the US. Research shows that medication-induced abortions are safe and effective. They were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more than 20 years ago.
The awaited ruling in a Texas lawsuit brought by a Christian group — in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision last year to strip away the constitutional right to end a pregnancy — would affect states where abortion is legal as well as those that outlaw it.
“This Texas lawsuit is a clear and present danger to patients and providers all across the country,” Inslee said in a statement. “Washington will not sit by idly and risk the devastating consequences of inaction.”
Former US president Donald Trump-appointed Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk last month heard debate over the Alliance Defending Freedom’s request to revoke or suspend the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. The conservative group claims it was improperly approved.
Kacsmaryk said he would rule “as soon as possible,” without giving any clear indication of how he might decide.
The bulk pill purchase also comes as Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson pursues the issue from another angle: He is helping to lead a multistate lawsuit in federal court meant to further ease restrictions to the medication.
The lawsuit filed with Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum in February against the FDA accuses it of singling out mifepristone for excessively burdensome regulation, despite evidence that the drug is safer than Tylenol, Ferguson said in a statement at the time.
The lawsuit asks the court to find certain FDA restrictions unlawful and to stop the federal agency from enforcing or applying them to mifepristone.
State lawmakers are also bringing legislation that would authorize the Department of Corrections to sell or distribute the drug stockpile to licensed providers in Washington.
The bill’s cosponsor, Washington Senator Karen Keiser, said the past year has made it clear that they cannot be complacent when it comes to reproductive health.
“The legislature is taking a number of crucial steps this session to protect abortion rights, but those rights are meaningless without access to care,” Keiser said.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RELATIONS: Cultural spats, such as China’s claims over the origins of kimchi, have soured public opinion in South Korea against Beijing over the past few years Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae-myung, after taking center stage at an Asian summit in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s departure. The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came the final day of Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade, and a day after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties. Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Xi, with the two
RSS