The US Supreme Court on Monday let a decision on blocking an Arizona legislation for abortion stand temporarily, giving no reason for its action.
The Abortion law limits the availability of medicinal and nonsurgical abortions across Arizona.
The law, which was enacted in the year 2012, needs abortion providers to meet the terms mentioned in a 2000 protocol from the regulatory body Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for abortion-inducing drug, called mifepristone or RU-486. The law aims to “protect women from the dangerous and potentially deadly off-label use of abortion-inducing drugs,” said the legislatures.
Under the 2000 protocol, it is proposed that the drug should be administered in higher doses in pregnant women in comparison to the customary today. The most important thing to mention about the protocol is that it asks the administering of drugs to only those women who are in their first seven weeks of pregnancy.
If looked at the ground realities, the doctors have been seen giving lower doses of the drug to women even in the ninth week of pregnancy.
Years after the protocol was issued, the doctors have been seen finding the lower doses of drug as effective for women and also consider the drug safe even after the seventh week of pregnancy.
A unanimous justice panel comprising of three judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, had in June this year blocked the Abortion law, saying the legislation had imposed an “undue burden” on the Right to Abortion.
According to the medical experts, the FDA’s 2000 protocol for mifepristone is obsolete, dangerous and cumbersome. The new protocol, which is followed by most providers today, calls for lower doses to pregnant women at less cost and in fewer visits and also calls it safely available through the ninth week of pregnancy.
The drug, Mifepristone, helps in blocking the action of a hormone called progesterone that is responsible for maintaining a pregnancy. Experts say it is taken in combination with a second drug called misoprostol, which leads to the contraction of uterus and responsible to expel its contents.
It is noteworthy, the FDA has not given green signal to misoprostol for abortions.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.