Soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a former Republican congressman made what might sound like an unusual offer. Did abortion pill makers want him to try to get federal legislation passed to explicitly stop states from restricting medications that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration?
His concern was about more than abortion pills themselves. After his stint in Congress, Jim Greenwood had spent 15 years as the president and CEO of one of the biopharma industry’s main lobbying groups. He figured that the 20-year-old approval of mifepristone might be in jeopardy. If an attempted ban prevailed in court, he knew, it could undermine the country’s infrastructure for evaluating all drugs.
An ultra-conservative federal judge, appointed by former President Trump, is presiding over a closely watched case challenging the FDA approval of mifepristone. If he sides with the anti-abortion groups that filed the lawsuit, the decision could potentially set a sweeping precedent. “We’re talking about a judge who is a non-scientist overriding an agency full of experts about the safety and efficacy of a drug,” said Greer Donley, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School.
