Former Trump Justice Department Spokesperson Sarah Isgur basically told the right-wing Supreme Court justices to be careful what they wish for if they grant standing to the anti-abortion activists that filed the Mifepristone case.
April 24, 2023

Former Trump Justice Department Spokesperson Sarah Isgur basically told the right-wing Supreme Court justices to be careful what they wish for if they grant standing to the anti-abortion activists that filed the Mifepristone case. As we discussed here, SCOTUS recently stayed the case, keeping the drug legal, for now.

As Insider explained this week, here are the arguments from the DOJ on the case:

In their 49-page response on Monday, DOJ lawyers asked the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to put Kacsmaryk's ruling on hold indefinitely during the appeals process, arguing that the case should never have been allowed to move forward in the first place.

"The district court erred in holding that plaintiffs have standing," the DOJ motion states. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are a group of anti-abortion activists, including medical professionals, called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. In order to bring their case forward, they needed to show they have been or could be personally harmed by the FDA's approval of mifepristone.

But anti-abortion doctors are neither in a position to use nor prescribe mifepristone, the DOJ said. Their argument, instead, relies on speculation — and absurdity: "that other doctors will prescribe mifepristone; that those doctors' patients will experience exceedingly rare serious adverse events; that those patients will then seek out plaintiffs — doctors who oppose mifepristone and abortion — for care; and that they will do so in sufficient numbers to burden plaintiffs' medical practice."

DOJ lawyers also said the case should be tossed because the activists waited far too long to bring their suit, since the FDA approved mifepristone in 2000.

Isgur was asked about the stay, which had only two justices publicly dissenting, Alito and Thomas, and the other cases which are coming up. Isgur replied that "to the extent that the justices thought they were going to get out of the abortion business after Dobbs, clearly not the case. There are a lot of these similar type cases percolating at the lower courts," before talking about the slippery slope they're potentially walking should they rule to outlaw the drug.

And I just think it’s worth noting, like, remember this, remember Bostock, that it’s not simply that the courts lacked integrity just because you don't like the decision. And here, frankly, at the Supreme Court level, this decision wasn’t actually about abortion, it was about who has the injury to bring this lawsuit in the first place, and conservatives should be a little careful.

If these doctors can bring a challenge on Mifepristone, I don't see what a similar group of doctors could bring a charge against gun manufacturers. This idea that you’re injured by being an emergency room doctor helping patients with something.

Isgur must be confusing these justices with anyone that has one iota of concern about consistency or with being seen as huge hypocrites, but I do agree they'll open the door for more people filing exactly those sort of cases if they grant standing in the Mifepristone case.

I think in the end they will toss the case due to exactly that, a lack of standing, but sadly we're far from done with the damage they're going to do to women's reproductive health before this is over.

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