AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge in Texas on Friday ordered a hold on U.S. approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, throwing into question access to the nation’s most common method of abortion in a ruling that waved aside decades of scientific approval.
AUSTIN, Texas A federal judge in Texas on Friday ordered a hold on U.S. approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, throwing into question access to the nation’s most common method of abortion in a ruling that waved aside decades of scientific approval.
The immediate impact of the ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, which does not go into immediate effect, was unclear.
The abortion drug has been widely used in the U.S. since 2000 and there is essentially no precedent for a lone judge overruling the medical decisions of the Food and Drug Administration. Mifepristone is one of two drugs used for medication abortion in the United States, along with misoprostol, which is also used to treat other medical conditions.
