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Thursday the US Department of Justice did he know of wanting to bring to the Supreme Court the case concerning the new restrictions on the sale of mifepristone, one of the two drugs used for years in the country for abortions. A federal appeals court Wednesday had established that the abortion pill could continue to be sold, but with various restrictions: the application of the appeal ruling could significantly limit access to abortion in the United States, where in the last year many conservative-oriented states have introduced increasingly stringent laws, until it was almost completely banned.
Federal appeals court judges on Wednesday blocked part of the ruling of a Texas federal judge who recently asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US government agency that deals with the regulation of food and pharmaceutical products, to stop the distribution of mifepristone throughout the United States. The judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, was chosen by Donald Trump when he was president and last week he ruled on a lawsuit brought by a conservative group, according to which the FDA in 2000 did not have the necessary authority to approve mifepristone. Kacsmaryk had questioned the safety of mifepristone and asked the FDA to suspend its approval across the country.
On Wednesday, the appeals court ruled that the drug may continue to be sold, but partially approved the Texas judge’s requests, making it more difficult to obtain: among other things, mifepristone can only be purchased after a consultation doctor, cannot be received at home by mail and can only be prescribed within the first seven weeks of pregnancy, instead of the first ten, unlike what happened up to now.
In the aftermath of the ruling, US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Justice Department will appeal to the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body in the country, to request that it overturn all limitations required by the Texas ruling. However, it is not said that the request will be successful: the majority of the judges of the Supreme Court are of a conservative orientation and in June 2022 the Court had overturned the historic sentence which since 1973 guaranteed access to abortion at the federal level.
In the United States, more than half of abortions occur with prescription medication after a remote doctor consultation. Patients who decide to terminate their pregnancy take two drugs within 48 hours: first mifepristone, which in Italy is marketed under the name RU486 and blocks a hormone necessary for the development of pregnancy, and then misoprostol, another drug which it helps to empty the uterus but since it is also used in a number of other circumstances, it is not subject to particular restrictions on sale.
– Read also: The dispute between two US federal courts over the abortion pill