A federal appeals court said that mifepristone, the abortion pill that a Texas judge attempted to keep people from having access to, is still available—but it can’t be sent through the mail.
The Fifth Circuit countered the judge’s claim that the Food and Drug Administration should remove the pill because its approval wasn’t valid. The court said that “too much time had passed for the plaintiffs, a consortium of groups and doctors opposed to abortion, to challenge that decision,” according to the New York Times.
However, the Fifth Circuit court did agree with the Texas judge’s ruling that mifepristone cannot be mailed to people who need them. To do so violates the Comstock Act, an 1873 law that prohibited the distribution of birth control and abortion methods, including information about them.
“I want to be clear: abortion, including medication abortion, remains safe and legal in the state of Michigan,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a written statement to Bridge Michigan in response to the Texas ruling.
“In Michigan, mifepristone — in combination with another drug, misoprostol — is used in more than half of all abortions,” Bridge Michigan reported. “In 2012, 51 percent of Michigan’s 15,367 abortions in Michigan were nonsurgical, according to the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services.”
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