RALEIGH, North Carolina – Some of the North Carolina government’s restrictions on the distribution of abortion pills, such as the requirement that doctors personally prescribe and provide the medicine to the patient, are illegal because they frustrate Congress’ goal of using federal regulators to ensure the medicine is distributed safely, a judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles in Greensboro handed a partial victory to a doctor who performs abortions and who last year sued state and local prosecutors and state health and medical officials over state medication abortion regulations beyond those addressed by Food and US Drug Administration.
Other restrictions on the drug mifepristone that have been challenged, however, such as the requirement for a 72-hour in-person appointment, an in-person exam and an ultrasound before prescription, are not lifted and may remain in place, Eagles wrote. This is because they have not been expressly reviewed and rejected by the FDA, or because they focus more on the practice of medicine or the patient’s overall health, she added.
However, some “legal requirements of state Abortion Laws constitute obstacles to Congress’s clear and manifest purpose of providing a comprehensive regulatory framework for the safe use and distribution of high-risk FDA-administered drugs,” wrote Eagles, an appointee of the court of President Barak Obama. She asked the parties to propose written judgments and injunctions in the case within a few weeks.
GOP legislative leaders did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The decision can be appealed.
Amy Bryant, the doctor who sued, said Wednesday that she was pleased with Eagles’ ruling involving restrictions “that call into question or interfere with the FDA’s expert judgment” and that she and her lawyers were reviewing “the implications this has for the providing care to patients in North Carolina.
Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, an abortion rights advocate and gubernatorial candidate, was a legal party nominee in the case. But he did not defend the additional restrictions in court because Stein’s office believed they were overturned by the FDA.
“The court found that parts of North Carolina’s anti-abortion law that make it more difficult for women, especially in rural North Carolina, to have a medication abortion are unconstitutional,” Stein said Tuesday. “Republican lawmakers enacted the law to control, not protect, women.”
After the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the Republican-led General Assembly enacted new abortion laws in 2023 that carried forward or expanded many abortion restrictions, such as moving the ban on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy to 12 weeks. The restrictions also apply specifically to medication abortions. Violation of some rules may result in criminal, civil and professional penalties.
Republican legislative leaders allowed to join the process to defend the restrictions argued that the FDA had not been given specific powers to establish regulations on abortion medications nationwide. While Eagles agreed, she added that there was nothing to indicate that Congress had given the FDA less authority to regulate the use and distribution of mifepristone compared to any other drug for which it had the power to change and relax restrictions if it was found to be safe. .
The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 to terminate pregnancy when used in combination with a second medication, misoprostol. The pills are now used in more than half of all abortions in the US. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in March from lawyers for anti-abortion doctors who asked the court to restrict access to mifepristone, but the justices did not appear ready to do so then.
Some of North Carolina’s restrictions on the books had already been removed by federal regulators as unnecessary, Eagles wrote, including that the drug be prescribed only by a doctor and dispensed in person. The FDA announced in 2021 that women could get a prescription through an online appointment and receive pills in the mail. Eagles also said the state’s requirement that a woman schedule an in-person follow-up appointment was also deemed unnecessary by the FDA.
When the FDA creates a program for a high-risk drug and expressly imposes and removes a limit, “the state cannot reimpose that restriction based on drug safety concerns,” Eagles wrote, but the requirements “address health concerns broader provisions and informed consent for the termination of a pregnancy” are not anticipated.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
