By Melanie Escalante
J. Marvin Jones Federal Building – 205 East Fifth Avenue Amarillo. (Photo by The Hub@TTU staff)
On April 21, the Supreme Court announced mifepristone will remain on the market without the restrictions requested by the lower court. However, the lawsuit remains ongoing as arguments will be heard in a Fifth Circuit New Orleans court in May.
This decision came a week after the Supreme Court placed a hold on a federal appeals court decision to restrict access to mifepristone, one of two medications prescribed for chemical abortions that over 20 years ago, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The hold was a result of the collision of opposing court rulings on April 7; one in Texas and one in Washington.
In Washington, Obama-appointed district judge Thomas Rice ordered the FDA to remain firm in their approval of mifepristone. In Amarillo, the ruling from Trump-appointed district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk called for the suspension of the approval of mifepristone.
Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. the FDA
The lawsuit out of Texas was filed by four national Christian, anti-abortion and conservative affiliated medical associations, including the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, against the FDA in November. The plaintiffs stated that the FDA “has continued to fail them (women and girls) by removing even the most basic precautionary requirements associated with their (chemical abortion drugs) use,” emphasizing the failed acknowledgement of “federal laws that prohibit the distribution of chemical abortion drugs by postal mail.”
Sonja Morin, collaborator with student organization Raiders Defending Life from Fall River, Massachusetts, said the plaintiffs’ reference to the Comstock Act of 1873 was a concerning approach.
The case should not focus on religion and moral beliefs, but on life and health, she added. Using the foundation of past legal cases that prohibited non-harmful and non-threatening medical treatments, invites the ban of birth control or sexually transmitted infection treatments into the conversation as well.
Kate Peaslee, faculty advisor for Raiders for Reproductive Rights, a Texas Tech student organization fighting for bodily autonomy, said one of the most troubling aspects of the case was the trial presiding specifically in Amarillo, Texas.
According to a document obtained from the Texas Comptroller’s Office, the AHM’s mailing address is in Tennessee. However, their registered street address in Amarillo allows the Northern District of Texas to have jurisdiction over the case.
Thinking back to the June 24 reversal of Roe v. Wade, Peaslee added that part of the case was argued to promote state decision-making. Considering Texas already has a near abortion ban, the court case presiding in Amarillo feels hypocritical.
“They want this to be taken up by a sympathetic judge to anti-abortion issues to have national and not just state implications,” Peaslee said. “That was what alerted, not just me, but other people who are more knowledgeable than me, of the suspicious nature of this — choosing the location that has just one federal judge assigned to cases.”
What is mifepristone?
Doctorate of medicine student at Tech Marilyn Mathew said mifepristone essentially acts as progesterone, a sex hormone that communicates readiness for implantation to your body; mifepristone stops the communication and prevents pregnancy.
The abortion-inducing drug can be used into the second trimester, however, in Texas the pill would not be prescribed past the six-week mark. A commonly prescribed drug in conjunction with mifepristone is misoprostol, which contracts the muscles in the uterus in order to clear the lining.
Highlighted in the complaint is the FDA’s disregard to “the substantial evidence that chemical abortion drugs cause more complications than even surgical abortion.”
Mathew said she has seen doctors claim that “women are bleeding out” as a result of chemical abortion. When women experience a miscarriage, pregnancy or menstrual cycle it is a very bloody situation, she added.
“Of course, women are bleeding during that time period, but it’s a controlled bleed. It’s not a side effect, it’s actually the effect we’re looking for,” Mathew said.
Ectopic pregnancies, molar pregnancies and miscarriages can also be treated with mifepristone. Tissue left inside of a woman experiencing a miscarriage can become infected, even cancerous at times, she added. Ensuring the cavity is clean is extremely important in the healing process.
A truck drove around the federal courthouse displaying abortion-rights messaging during a hearing on the abortion drug mifepristone in Amarillo. (Photo by The Hub@TTU staff)
Title IX: How are students affected by changes in health care?
Alexander Faris, program manager for Student Civil Rights and Title IX at Tech, said Title IX supports all pregnancies by excusing students’ time off for medical appointments and other pregnancy-related needs.
Along with the significant increase in students experiencing miscarriages, Faris added that their office has noticed medical providers are fearful in these situations due to the change in health care.
If the pill is banned and women no longer have a method of expediting the healing process, students experiencing a miscarriage might require more time off, potentially resulting in an academic penalty.
Whereas they may have had an opportunity to make a decision about their pregnancy prior to the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Farris said they no longer have a decision and are carrying those pregnancies to term.
“It has been very much affecting many women, so much so that some have been in the hospital all semester and have had to withdraw. This is something that I think about and I see firsthand every day,” Faris said.
Not only are students facing physical pain from miscarriages, they are grieving a loss.
He recounted a situation where an expecting couple painted a nursery, fully planning the arrival of their unborn child, before losing them in a miscarriage. Both parents “lost it.”
“I’m talking about me as a person, not as an employee of a university; the question that I want answered is, ‘Why are we putting people in pain and suffering for more than it is necessary?’ There’s no reason to do that to someone,” Faris said.
Loss and Life
Women kneeled and prayed on the steps of the courthouse during a hearing on the abortion drug mifepristone in Amarillo. (Photo by The Hub@TTU staff)
Gracie Speer is a senior accounting major from Fredericksburg, Texas. She was raised in an anti-abortion, Catholic household and said she witnessed the emotional toll that resulted from her family member having an abortion at a young age.
“I wouldn’t want someone to go through that, in a sense because I mean, there’s always that ‘What if? What could have happened if I didn’t do that? What could my life have been like?’ It just sticks with you, especially being a Catholic too,” Speer said. “It’s a really big sin and you can still be forgiven for that.”
Speer likened pregnancy to someone being on life support as in both cases life depends heavily on external care. She understands why people say, “My body, my choice,” but the argument is no longer valid when a pregnant woman is responsible for ensuring the health of another life.
She said some people do not understand that the benefits of having a child outweigh the risks of having an abortion.
“It’s not even a woman’s choice, it’s not even a reproductive right — that’s kind of how we see it,” Speer said.
Ariana Aranda, senior biology major on the pre-medical track with plans of pursuing a career in reproductive healthcare, said she could have lost a close family member during childbirth if not for the emergency abortion.
The doctors were not able to see the baby’s development until the pregnancy had further progressed into the second trimester, leaving the doctor with no other option but to perform a traumatic, surgical abortion, she added.
“I didn’t want her to deliver the child because she would most likely have passed away. There’s people that are like, ‘Deliver the child and save the mother,’ but the child wouldn’t have made it to 24 hours,” Aranda said.
There was no ideal outcome.
The family received a keepsake of the tiny footprints, and mourned their loss as they buried the small box.
Post-birth
Answers to the pressures people face when choosing abortion are universal basic income, guaranteed healthcare for all, better protection for immigrants, poverty alleviation and increased gun control, Sonja Morin said.
Addressing abortion as a human rights issue and creating community, and government assistance programs ensures that violence is not used to combat social and economic problems.
“If all humans have dignity, and violence (abortion) inherently threatens a human’s ability to exist and to thrive, then we should be countering those different things that threaten human life,” Morin said. “It makes the most sense to see humanity as this continuum that deserves to be defended and protected at every stage in a fashion that is not only equitable, but one that is backed by compassion.”
Hannah Powell, sophomore biochemistry major from Houston, Texas, said if the FDA were to suspend their approval of mifepristone, marginalized communities would be affected the most. Whether the issue is medical mistrust in the black community or low-income individuals not having the ability to travel outside of the state to have an abortion, people need to be more considerate of the issues faced by such communities, she added.
According to the National Partnership for Women and Families website, not only are Black women three to four times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related death compared to white women, but throughout the course of a pregnancy, Black women experience more maternal complications.
America’s Health Rankings reported that women represent a higher percentage of people living below the poverty level compared to their male counterparts. Individuals who live in rural areas make up a higher percentage compared to individuals living in metropolitan areas, and the percentage of Black and Hispanic people living below the poverty level is two times higher than that of white people.
Aranda said she is concerned that if the FDA were to suspend their approval of the pill, rates of child neglect and abuse would increase as a result.
“There’s like a cascade of horrible things that can happen when a child is born into a family that’s not ready for it,” Aranda said. “It’s really contradictory to force women to deliver children and then not make sure that the foster system and the whole social services system is perfectly stable, which it’s not and it’s completely unrealistic to ever fix it and make it perfect.”
Children in foster care are four times more likely to attempt suicide compared to other children, as reported by Foster America. Before reaching adulthood, one in eight American children are abused or neglected, and 70% of the youth involved in the juvenile justice system and 60% of child trafficking victims have had a history in the child welfare system.
Abortion is complicated and unique to each individual experience, said Kate Peaslee. Having a blanket law like banning medical abortion is not realistic, nor is it fair.
“The attacks on abortion care, the invasion of gender affirming care for trans individuals, this interception by politicians and legislators into people’s personal private bodies and lives,” Peaslee said. “It’s just this form of control that I don’t think is right or ethical. I guess for somebody who has a kind of pro-life perspective, I mean, nobody is forcing them to do anything with their bodies.”
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