A federal appeals court said Wednesday that Idaho and a group of GOP-led states will not be able to join Washington in its case against the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) mifepristone rule.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Idaho couldn’t show that the FDA’s rules hurt them, so they didn’t have the right to question them and couldn’t step in.
The court’s 3-0 decision was “guided by the Supreme Court’s recent decision on standing” in the case FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. In that case, a group of doctors who were against abortion tried to challenge mifepristone but failed because they couldn’t show that the drug hurt them.
The Alliance decision said the doctors could not show that the FDA’s approval of mifepristone forced them to have abortions or do anything else.
In 2023, Washington and a group of blue states sued the FDA for making it too hard to get mifepristone, which is one of two drugs used in medicine abortions. But a group of red states, led by Idaho, tried to get involved and ask for a totally different result.
Washington wanted the FDA to say that mifepristone is “safe and effective” and stop them from doing anything that would make it harder for people to get. Last year, the injunction was given by a district court.
But the red states asked for a court order to undo changes the FDA made to make mifepristone easier to get, like getting rid of a rule that the medicine be dispensed in person. At the district level, their move was turned down.
The court said that “the two complaints have little in common and are, in many ways, diametrically opposed.”
Washington’s protest is about whether or not the FDA’s requirements for provider certification and patient documentation are legal. It also questions the agency’s decision that mifepristone meets the “stringent standards” for restrictions in the first place.
Idaho’s complaint, on the other hand, is only about the FDA getting rid of the rule for dispensing in person. It says that the change wasn’t properly explained, which goes against medical science.
Mifepristone has never been ruled on before by a federal appeal court.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by Trump and had already let the Alliance doctors fight over the approval of mifepristone, also let Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho join the case and take it to Texas.
