- Challenging the first direct attack in the nation against the use of mifepristone, commonly known as RU-486, for early abortions, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit today in federal court to block Michigan’s abortion prohibition. The Center for Reproductive Rights charges the law violates the right to choose abortion by prohibiting the "off-label" use of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including drugs necessary to complete abortion using mifepristone. The new restriction, which has civil and criminal penalties, will also adversely impact the provision of surgical abortion.
"The act bans all medical abortions and makes surgical abortions more dangerous for the women of Michigan with no exception to protect a woman’s life or health," said Julie Rikelman, attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead counsel in the case. "It prohibits doctors from performing any abortion procedures using misoprostol, thereby banning the use of RU-486 in the entire state of Michigan," added Rikelman.
Signed into law by Governor Engler in December 2000, the new law prohibits Michigan’s state-mandated abortion literature from describing any procedure that uses a drug that hasn’t been specifically FDA-approved for use in an abortion. The drug misoprostol, FDA-approved as ulcer medication and used "off-label," is necessary to successfully complete an abortion using mifepristone, or RU-486. Under Michigan’s law, which amends a pre-existing mandatory delay and biased counseling requirement, if the state-issued pamphlet doesn’t discuss a procedure, it cannot, by law, be performed.
Mifepristone was approved for use by the FDA last September, after it was determined to be safe and effective in terminating early stage pregnancies. It can be utilized up to 49 days, or 7 weeks, into a pregnancy. By banning the use of misoprostol, the Michigan law prohibits one form of early abortions, namely those using RU-486, which are the safest to perform. Michigan’s law will force abortion providers to abandon the use of the mifepristone/misoprostol combination approved by the FDA or face criminal charges.
Even more dangerous is the law’s failure to provide for emergency abortions, which are necessary in many cases to save a woman’s life or preserve her health. Michigan’s law requires that all women wait 24 hours before undergoing an abortion. Thus, Michigan’s law is effectively a death sentence for any woman whose life would be spared by an abortion.
Plaintiffs in this case, including Northland Family Planning Clinic, Inc.; Northland Family Planning Clinic Inc.-West; Northland Family Planning Clinic Inc.-East; Womancare of Southfield, P.C.; and Summit Medical Center, Inc., are represented by Julie Rikelman and Simon Heller of the Center for Reproductive Rights, and local attorney David A. Nacht of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
