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      Conservative judges hear challenge to abortion pill access in controversial lawsuit

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      Three US appeals court judges who have previously favored abortion restrictions prepared to hear oral arguments on Wednesday on the future of the major abortion drug mifepristone.The case – which has landed before judges Jennifer Walker Elrod, James Ho and Cory Wilson – essentially calls on them to rule on whether the federal government should suspend or scale back the federal Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone in 2000, along with later actions that made the pill more widely accessible.Mifepristone has consistently been found to be safe and effective, and advocates argue that it is safer than the erectile dysfunction medication Viagra and low-level pain reliever Tylenol.But an emboldened anti-abortion movement set its sights on mifepristone after the US supreme court’s conservative majority last year eliminated federal abortion rights that had been established by the Roe v Wade decision in 1973.After a coalition of groups brought a lawsuit in November against the FDA’s approval of the drug, Texas-based federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in April issued a ruling suspending the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. Joe Biden’s administration appealed, sending it to the appellate court in New Orleans where Elrod, Ho and Wilson sit – and to the supreme court, which indefinitely blocked the suspension as the case proceeds.The plaintiffs in the dispute are an alliance of physician groups who generally argue they have standing to bring the case because they have members in Texas and elsewhere in the US who have treated women and girls experiencing complications after taking mifepristone for abortions. The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the American Association of Pro Life OB-GYNs, the American College of Pediatricians and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations contend that the complications – bleeding and pain – are dangerous, and have trotted out unproven arguments that women who have abortions are prone to suicide and depression.Studies have shown that 95% of women who had abortions reported five years later that it had been the right decision for them.Their effort to in essence ban mifepristone also hinges on a 150-year-old law known as the Comstock Act, which criminalizes the mailing or shipping of any “lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article”, along with anything that is “advertised or described in a manner … for producing abortion”.Interpreted widely enough, opponents of the plaintiffs say, the previously dormant Comstock Act could prohibit the legal mailing of any abortion instrument, even to states which have chosen to keep abortion legal since last year’s supreme court ruling, bringing the US one step closer to a national abortion ban that – according to polling – most Americans would not support.Meanwhile, the FDA’s efforts to rebuff the physician group has involved defending mifepristone’s approval process against claims that it was inadequate, along with characterizing the plaintiffs as lacking standing despite their contentions to the contrary.Jennifer Dalven, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, on Monday described the fifth circuit panel hearing the case as “one of the worst panels of judges that could have been assembled for those who believe mifepristone should remain on the market”.“This case should’ve been laughed out of court from the start – it has no basis in science, it has no basis in law, it’s been roundly criticized by experts from across the ideological spectrum,” Dalven said during a virtual briefing with reporters. “But we’re living in strange times, and some judges have shown that they’re willing to blatantly ignore the rule of law to achieve their own ideological goals.”Donald Trump nominated Ho and Wilson to their posts during his presidency. (He also nominated Kacsmaryk, whose ruling is the subject of Wednesday’s hearing.)Trump’s fellow Republican president George W Bush nominated Elrod.All three in 2021 upheld a Texas law which outlawed an abortion method commonly used to terminate pregnancies in their second trimester.A 2018 opinion from Ho called abortion “a moral tragedy”. And in 2019, though he concurred with an opinion which found that an abortion ban in Mississippi had to be struck down under legal precedent then in effect, he asserted: “Nothing in the text or original understanding of the constitution establishes a right to an abortion.”For her part, Elrod not only wrote the 2021 opinion addressing Texas’s ban of the second-trimester pregnancy abortion method, but also an opinion that same year which declined to order Louisiana state officials to issue a delayed license for a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in New Orleans. The opinion declared no one had the federal right to operate an abortion clinic.Either side could appeal any ruling from Elrod, Ho and Wilson to the supreme court, which could take a year or more to issue the final word on the matter.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Democratic states stockpile abortion pills as legal fight for access looms

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      Despite a reprieve by the US supreme court, a growing number of Democratic states are stockpiling abortion pills as the legal fight for access to the abortion drug mifepristone is set to continue.On Friday, the supreme court decided to temporarily block a lower court ruling that would have significantly restricted the availability of mifepristone, an FDA-approved abortion medication.Nevertheless, as the case continues to wind through America’s court system and remains challenged by anti-abortion groups, more Democratic states are now stockpiling abortion pills amid an unpredictable legal battle.Earlier this month, Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas issued a preliminary injunction that suspended the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, calling it a drug that is used to “kill the unborn human”.Swiftly after Kacsmaryk’s ruling, Democratic states have been stockpiling abortion pills including mifepristone as well as misoprostol, the second drug in the abortion regimen which can also be used on its own, although less effectively.At the Massachusetts governor Maura Healey’s request, the University of Massachusetts Amherst has purchased approximately 15,000 doses of mifepristone. The stockpile is expected to offer “sufficient coverage” in the state for over a year.“Mifepristone has been used safely for more than 20 years and is the gold standard. Here in Massachusetts, we are not going to let one extremist judge in Texas turn back the clock on this proven medication and restrict access to care in our state,” Healey said last week.Meanwhile, the Democratic governors of New York and California both announced plans to stockpile misoprostol in attempts to safeguard their states’ abortion access.New York’s governor Kathy Hochul announced last week that New York will be purchasing misoprostol in order to stockpile 150,000 doses, a five-year supply.Hochul also pledged that if mifepristone is removed from the market, New York will commit up to an additional $20m to providers to support other abortion methods.In a similar move, governor Gavin Newsom of California announced last week that the state has secured an emergency stockpile of up to 2m misoprostol pills“We will not cave to extremists who are trying to outlaw these critical abortion services. Medication abortion remains legal in California,” Newsom said, adding that California has shared the negotiated terms of its misoprostol purchase agreement to assist other states in securing the pill at low cost.Since then, additional Democratic states have followed suit.The governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, recently announced a partnership with the University of Maryland’s medical system to purchase a “substantial amount of mifepristone”.“This purchase is another example of our administration’s commitment to ensure Maryland remains a safe haven for abortion access and quality reproductive health care,” said Moore, who also released $3.5m in previously withheld funding for the state’s abortion care clinical training program.On Thursday, Oregon made a similar announcement, with its governor Tina Kotek revealing the state has secured a three-year supply of mifepristone, regardless of the supreme court’s ruling on the pill.“Here in Oregon, I will make sure that patients are able to access the medication they need and providers are able to provide that medication without unnecessary, politically motivated interference and intimidation,” Kotek said.With Democratic states rushing to stock up on abortion pills, the tumultuous legal fight for abortion access is far from over. In the last nine months, 13 states have banned abortion. With anti-abortion groups fighting for increased pill restrictions nationwide, even states that have legalized the procedure may become affected.Following the supreme court’s decision to temporarily block mifepristone restrictions, the next stage of the litigious battle over the drug will take place in the fifth circuit, with oral arguments scheduled for 17 May. The case will then likely return back to the supreme court.In a statement to the New York Times, Erik Baptist, a senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization representing a coalition of anti-abortion groups and doctors, pledged to continue fighting against abortion care.“The FDA must answer for the damage it has caused to the health of countless women and girls and the rule of law by failing to study how dangerous the chemical abortion drug regimen is and unlawfully removing every meaningful safeguard, even allowing for mail-order abortions,” he said about the 23-year-old FDA-approved drug.Meanwhile, the Joe Biden administration and civil rights organizations promised to continue fighting for reproductive rights.“I’ll continue to fight attacks on women’s health. The American people must also continue to use their vote as their voice and elect a Congress that will restore the protections of Roe v Wade,” Biden tweeted shortly after the supreme court issued its decision.The American Civil Liberties Union echoed similar sentiments, with Jennifer Dalven, ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project director saying: “Make no mistake, we aren’t out of the woods by any means … And as this baseless lawsuit shows, extremists will use every trick in the book to try to ban abortion nationwide.”Dalven added: “But if our opponents think we will allow them to continue to pursue their extreme goals without fierce backlash, they are sorely mistaken.” More

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      US supreme court to decide on abortion pill access after extending deadline

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      The supreme court is poised to decide whether to preserve access to a widely used abortion medication, after extending its deadline to act until at least Friday.Less than a year after the court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v Wade and eliminated a constitutional right to an abortion, the justices are now weighing new legal questions in an escalating case in Texas with potentially sweeping implications for women’s reproductive health and the federal drug approval process.For now, the court is not weighing the merits of a legal challenge brought by abortion opponents seeking to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of mifepristone. At issue before the court is whether to allow restrictions on the drug imposed by a lower court that would sharply limit access to the drug, including in states where abortion remains legal.The justices had initially set a deadline of 11.59pm on Wednesday, but that afternoon, Justice Samuel Alito issued a brief order extending the court’s deadline by 48 hours. The one-sentence order provided no explanation for the delay but indicated the court expects to act before midnight on Friday.The legal clash began in Texas, with US district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling to revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a drug first approved more than two decades ago and used by more than 5 million women to end their pregnancies.The Biden administration immediately appealed the decision, which it assailed as an unprecedented attack on the the FDA’s decision-making. The US court of appeals for the 5th circuit then temporarily blocked the Texas decision, preserving access to mifepristone while the legal case plays out, but reversed regulatory actions taken by the FDA since 2016 that expanded access to the pill. Those changes include allowing patients to receive the drug by mail, and extending its use from seven to 10 weeks of pregnancy.The Biden administration and drugmakers next asked the supreme court to pause the lower court’s ruling, arguing that reimposing the barriers would create chaos in the marketplace and cause confusion for providers and patients.Alliance Defending Freedom, a coalition of anti-abortion doctors and organizations, has argued that the FDA failed to follow proper protocols when it approved mifepristone and has since ignored safety risks of the medication. Medical experts have said the claims are dubious and not based on scientific evidence.Complicating the legal landscape around this case, a federal judge in Washington state, Thomas Rice, issued a contradictory ruling in a separate lawsuit brought by Democratic attorneys general in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The order, which Rice reaffirmed after the appeals ruling in the Texas case, blocked the FDA from limiting the availability of mifepristone in those states.Since the fall of Roe, more than a dozen US states have banned or severely restricted abortion. But many other states have moved in the opposite direction, approving legislation and ballot measures that protect abortion rights. Amid the patchwork legal landscape, attention has turned to medication abortion, which can be obtained by mail and administered at home.Mifepristone is the first pill in a two-drug regimen that is the most common method of ending a pregnancy, accounting for more than half of all abortions in the US. Decades of research and data from hundreds of medical studies have shown that it is both a safe and effective way to end a pregnancy.The drug first won FDA approval in 2000, and over the years the agency has loosened restrictions on its use. Those changes include allowing the drug’s use from seven to 10 weeks of pregnancy, lowering the dosage of mifepristone needed to safely end a pregnancy, allowing the pills to be delivered by mail, eliminating the in-person doctors visit requirement and approving a generic version.Depending on how the justices rule, those changes could be reversed, at least while the case proceeds through the courts. On Wednesday, GenBioPro, the manufacturer of the generic form of mifepristone, sued the FDA to keep the drug on the market, setting up a new front in the legal battle over access to abortion medication. More

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      Fate of US abortion drug hangs in balance ahead of Friday deadline

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      FDA authorization for a key abortion drug could be nullified after Friday, unless an appeals court acts on a Biden administration request to block last week’s ruling suspending approval of the drug.The drug, mifepristone, is used in more than half of all the abortions in the US. The ruling, issued by a federal judge in Texas, applies across the country.Writing that the ruling would “inflict grave harm on women, the medical system, and the public” if it went into effect, the Department of Justice on Monday requested the fifth US circuit court of appeals temporarily block Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling while the appeals process plays out.The issue may ultimately fall into the hands of the US supreme court and its conservative supermajority, which eradicated abortion rights last year by overturning Roe v Wade.Kacsmaryk stayed his decision for seven days to allow the Biden administration time to appeal. Shortly after the ruling from Texas, Obama-appointed Washington district judge Thomas Rice issued a contradictory ruling that directs the FDA to keep the drug available in 17 states.The dueling opinions set the stage for the supreme court to possibly intervene.“On one hand, you have a ruling that says to defer to the expertise of the FDA and keep the status quo while another says to second-guess the FDA with junk science,” says David S Cohen, law professor at Drexel University, who focuses on reproductive rights.“When you have different rulings from different federal courts it is more likely for the US supreme court to get involved.”The New Orleans-based appellate court is one of the most conservative in the US. Republican appointees comprise three-quarters of its bench, with six judges nominated by former President Donald Trump. The court has routinely ruled against the Biden administration and on behalf of Texas’s abortion laws.If the appeals court declines to put a hold on Kacsmaryk’s ruling, then the Biden administration would likely appeal to the high court.“It’s possible that the mifepristone issue makes its way to the [Supreme] Court this week, either because the Fifth Circuit refuses to even temporarily pause Kacsmaryk’s ruling, or because it takes too long to do anything,” writes Steve Vladeck, a constitutional law professor at The University of Texas.In his ruling, Kacsmaryk echoed the arguments of the anti-abortion groups that brought the case, writing that the FDA disregarded science that the drug causes harm, despite repeated studies finding it extremely safe. Legal experts say that the decision – the first time the judiciary has intervened to overturn FDA approval of a drug – could create a precedent that throws the entire drug approvals system into disarray.More than 250 pharmaceutical and biomedical companies who strongly denounced Kacsmaryk’s ruling in an open letter and warned that it could upend the FDA approval process as well as the entire US healthcare system.“Judicial activism will not stop here,” they cautioned. “If courts can overturn drug approvals without regard for science and evidence, or for the complexity required to fully vet the safety and efficacy of new drugs, any medicine is at risk for the same outcome as mifepristone.”Mifepristone is used for abortion, miscarriage management and other medical care. If access to the drug is upended, abortion providers have said they will continue to prescribe the second of the two-drug protocol for abortions. However, that drug, misoprostol, has been found to be somewhat less effective and associated with more painful side effects than the combination of pills.With the mifepristone in doubt, the Biden administration asked Rice, the district judge in Washington, for clarification on how to proceed if the Texas ruling goes into effect, given that his decision orders the government to take no action that would hinder its availability.Legal experts have argued that the FDA does not need to enforce Kacsmaryk’s ruling, even if it goes into effect.The ruling does not formally compel the FDA to seize the pills and take them off the market, Cohen says, and leaves the door open for the Biden administration to apply what’s called “enforcement discretion”, which would entail issuing guidance protecting the distribution of mifepristone. In the past, the FDA has granted drug manufacturers this type of safe harbor even in the absence of agency authorization, including for infant formula.“The ruling does not force the FDA to do anything,” says Cohen. “It’s up to the FDA to determine what to do next. They can use enforcement discretion to protect access to mifepristone. We shouldn’t read into Kacsmaryk’s ruling as having more power than it does – it is limited – and there’s a huge amount of authority the FDA can retain.” More

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      ‘Unborn human’: the anti-abortion rhetoric of Texas judge’s ruling

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      Texas-based federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on Friday issued a ruling aiming to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a common abortion drug approved for use 23 years ago that has been consistently found to be safe and effective.It is widely believed that the anti-abortion groups who brought the case challenging the FDA’s authorization of the drug did so in Amarillo, Texas, so that it would be certain to land on the desk of this particular judge. Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by Donald Trump, is known for disregarding precedent and for weighing in on the far-right side of culture war issues.Kacsmaryk’s 67-page decision – a preliminary ruling that will be appealed and is likely to wind its way up to the supreme court – makes plain that the strategy paid off. His decision employs the same rhetoric that has been deliberately seeded over decades by the anti-abortion movement. Some examples are below.‘Unborn child’In the very first footnote to the decision, Kacsmaryk sets the tone for the opinion, explaining he why he will use “unborn human” or “unborn child” throughout his ruling:Jurists often use the word “fetus” to inaccurately identify unborn humans in unscientific ways. The word “fetus” refers to a specific gestational stage of development, as opposed to the zygote, blastocyst, or embryo stages … Because other jurists use the terms “unborn human” or “unborn child” interchangeably, and because both terms are inclusive of the multiple gestational stages relevant to the FDA Approval, 2016 Changes, and 2021 Changes, this Court uses “unborn human” or “unborn child” terminology throughout this Order, as appropriate.‘To kill the unborn human’Mifepristone, the drug at the center of the case, works by blocking progesterone, a hormone required for a pregnancy to develop. It is approved by the FDA to be taken up until 10 weeks of pregnancy and is generally used in conjunction with misoprostol, which causes the uterus to contract. This is how Kacsmaryk describes this two-pill regimen, which together account for more than half the abortions in the US:Because mifepristone alone will not always complete the abortion, FDA mandates a two-step drug regimen: mifepristone to kill the unborn human, followed by misoprostol to induce cramping and contractions to expel the unborn human from the mother’s womb.‘Shame, regret, anxiety, depression’The anti-abortion movement is known to champion the idea that people who have abortions come to be plagued by regret – an idea promoted by former supreme court justice Anthony Kennedy in a 2007 decision, even as he admitted there’s “no reliable data to measure the phenomenon”. But reliable data finally came in 2020, with the landmark Turnaway Study, which spent five years following nearly 1,000 women who sought abortions. The study found that 95% of women who had abortions reported five years later that it had been the right decision for them.Kacsmaryk, however, writes:Women who have aborted a child – especially through chemical abortion drugs that necessitate the woman seeing her aborted child once it passes – often experience shame, regret, anxiety, depression, drug abuse and suicidal thoughts because of the abortion.‘Fetal personhood’Kacsmaryk also writes that any consideration of alleged damage caused by the abortion pill should extend to the fetus. This is a nod to the radical idea of “fetal personhood” – that embryos and fetuses are people entitled to the full protection of the US constitution. That argument presumes abortion to be murder, and were it to take hold in the legal system, could lead to a national ban on the procedure. Invoking the name of the US supreme court decision which eliminated federal abortion rights, he writes:Parenthetically, said “individual justice” and “irreparable injury” analysis also arguably applies to the unborn humans extinguished by mifepristone – especially in the post-Dobbs era.Comstock ActThe groups that brought the case ruled on by Kacsmaryk aim to revive a long dormant, 150-year-old anti-obscenity law called the Comstock Act, which prohibited sending abortifacients in the mail. Kacsmaryk’s decision indeed revives that law – and some experts fear his logic could extend to more abortion methods and even lead to a national ban.This purported “consensus view” is that the Comstock Act does not prohibit the mailing of items designed to produce abortions “where the sender does not intend them to be used unlawfully”. Id. This argument is unpersuasive for several reasons … In any case, the Comstock Act plainly forecloses mail-order abortion in the present … the law is plain.Abortion as eugenicsKacsmaryk also quotes conservative US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, who has linked abortion to eugenics, the belief in selective breeding to produce a superior society. In rejecting research pointing to worse psychosocial and financial outcomes for children of people denied abortions, he also seems to draw a line between abortion and the worst atrocities of the last century:(“[A]bortion has proved to be a disturbingly effective tool for implementing the discriminatory preferences that undergird eugenics.”) Though eugenics were once fashionable in the Commanding Heights and High Court, they hold less purchase after the conflict, carnage and casualties of the last century revealed the bloody consequences of Social Darwinism practiced by would-be Übermenschen. More

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      Republicans push wave of bills that would bring homicide charges for abortion

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      Republicans push wave of bills that would bring homicide charges for abortionProliferation of bills in Texas, Kentucky and elsewhere ‘exposes fundamental lie of anti-abortion movement’, experts sayFor decades, the mainstream anti-abortion movement promised that it did not believe women who have abortions should be criminally charged. But now, Republican lawmakers in several US states have introduced legislation proposing homicide and other criminal charges for those seeking abortion care.‘Sanctuary cities for the unborn’: how a US pastor is pushing for a national abortion banRead moreThe bills have been introduced in states such as Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Some explicitly target medication abortion and self-managed abortion; some look to remove provisions in the law which previously protected pregnant people from criminalization; and others look to establish the fetus as a person from the point of conception.It is highly unlikely that all of these bills will pass. But their proliferation marks a distinct departure from the language of existing bans and abortion restrictions, which typically exempt people seeking abortion care from criminalization.“This exposes a fundamental lie of the anti-abortion movement, that they oppose the criminalization of the pregnant person,” said Dana Sussman, the acting executive director of Pregnancy Justice. “They are no longer hiding behind that rhetoric.”Some members of the anti-abortion movement have made it clear the bills do not align with their views, continuing to insist that abortion providers, rather than pregnant people themselves, should be targeted by criminal abortion laws.“[We] oppose penalties for mothers, who are a second victim of a predatory abortion industry,” said Kristi Hamrick, the chief media and policy strategist for Students for Life of America. “We want to see a billion-dollar industry set up to profit by preying on women and the preborn held accountable. The pro-life movement as a whole has been very clear on this.”A spokesperson for Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America echoed the same sentiment: that the organization unequivocally rejects prosecution of the pregnant person.The bills are likely to be controversial as they proceed, even within conservative circles: Republicans have frequently hit walls when trying to pass anti-abortion legislation, with lawmakers at odds over exactly how far bans should go.The reproductive justice organization If/When/How points out these bills are an indication of the different wings and splinter groups in the anti-abortion movement, increasingly evident since the Dobbs decision last year that overturned Roe v Wade.“What we’re seeing, post-Dobbs, is a splintering in tactics that abortion opponents are using, and emboldening on the part of more hardline” factions within the movement, said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at If/When/How.“That has always been an undercurrent” in the movement, Diaz-Tello added. “As we see other abortion opponents declaring their opposition to criminalization of people who end their pregnancies, this is the opportunity for them to really step up and put those principles into action.”The bills being introduced in Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky and South Carolina look to establish that life begins at conception. Each of these bills explicitly references homicide charges for abortion. Homicide is punishable by the death penalty in all of those states.Bills in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas also explicitly target medication abortion, which so far has fallen into a legal grey zone in much of the country.A bill in Alabama has also been announced, although not yet been introduced, by Republican representative Ernest Yarbrough, that would establish fetal personhood from conception and repeal a section of Alabama’s abortion ban that expressly prevents homicide charges for abortion. The state’s current law makes abortion a class A felony, on the same level as homicide, but exempts women seeking abortions from being held criminally or civilly liable.Laws that establish fetal personhood also bring the risk of opening pregnant people up to battery and assault charges for endangering a fetus. Such charges have already been documented in hundreds of cases, using criminal laws championed in recent decades by the anti-abortion movement that recognize fetuses as potential victims.“It never starts or stops with abortion,” said Sussman of the far-reaching effects of fetal personhood laws.“That means that not getting prenatal care, not taking pre-natal vitamins, working a job that is physically demanding – all of those things could impose some risk to the fetus – and that could be a child neglect or child abuse case.”Such laws have been used to target pregnant people who have taken prescribed medication, taken illegal drugs or drunk alcohol while pregnant, even when there has been no adverse outcome on the fetus.Some of the bills, such as the one in Arkansas, allow a partner to file an unlawful death lawsuit against a pregnant person who has had an abortion.“The ways in which pregnant people could become a mere vessel for an entity that has separate and unique rights is becoming closer and closer to reality. And there are ways in which this could be used that we haven’t even contemplated yet,” said Sussman.TopicsUS newsAbortionLaw (US)Reproductive rightsRoe v WadeUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Roe v Wade: US women win abortion rights – archive, January 1973

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      Roe v Wade: US women win abortion rights – archive, 197323 January 1973: The supreme court rules that a woman has a near-absolute right to an abortion, but only in the first three months of her pregnancy Washington, 22 JanuaryIn a long awaited decision the United States supreme court ruled today that a woman has a near-absolute right to an abortion, but only in the first three months of her pregnancy. During the later stages the State has an increasing power of intervention, the court ruled by a seven to two majority; and during the last trimester can refuse to allow the operation.The decision, which came today as part of a lengthy ruling which declared the Texas and Georgia anti-abortion laws unconstitutional, has been generally welcomed by liberal groups here. Mrs Lee Giddings, of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, said today she was “absolutely thrilled.”US supreme court overturns abortion rights, upending Roe v WadeRead moreBut one of the two dissenting supreme court justices, the Nixon appointee Justice Byron White (the other dissenting justice was also a Nixon appointee, Mr William Rehnquist), later criticised the verdict as “improvident, extravagant, and an exercise of raw judicial power.”In his ruling, Justice Harry Blackmun said that during the first three months of a pregnancy “the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the woman’s doctor.” After that, the State “In promoting its interest in the mother’s health” may regulate the abortion procedure by among other things, making laws, regulating the doctor’s terms of reference.Only in the third three-month period, when a foetus could presumably live, if there was a premature birth, can the State “regulate or even forbid abortion.” The justices ruled the State could intervene thus “where it was necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of life or the health of the mother.”The one dissenting voice raised today at the supreme court ruling came from the Women’s National Abortion Action Committee, which condemned the “artificial and arbitrary” time limits imposed by judges. A spokesperson, as they say here, says that “a woman should always have an absolute right to determine what happens to her own body.” Harsh reaction is also expected, of course, from the Roman Catholic church and other anti-abortion lobby groups.This is an edited extract. Read the article in full.TopicsAbortionFrom the Guardian archiveRoe v WadeUS supreme courtReproductive rightsLaw (US)WomenUS politicsnewsReuse this content More