2023 House Resolution 72

Whereas, Mifepristone is one of two medications commonly used together in a regimen for medication abortion or miscarriage care. It was first approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2000. As of June 2022, mifepristone had been used by an estimated 5.6 million people in the United States to safely end their pregnancies or manage their miscarriages. Mifepristone provides an alternative to procedural abortion and affords patients privacy during the process. Decades of research have shown that severe complications from medication abortion, defined as hospitalization or transfusion, occur less than 0.4 percent of the time. The risk of death when taking mifepristone is lower than that when taking some other common medications, such as Viagra. Overdoses on acetaminophen are far more common, accounting for over 600 deaths each year; and

Whereas, On April 7, 2023, in the case Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, ordered a stay on the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. In effect, this order would vacate the FDA’s approval of the drug, which has stood for over twenty-two years. The United States Department of Justice has already announced its intent to appeal the decision, to defend the FDA’s expert judgment that mifepristone is safe and effective and to protect Americans’ access to legal reproductive care; and

Whereas, The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine lawsuit and the April 7 order are clearly politically motivated. The plaintiffs engaged in forum shopping, and their chosen judge overstepped the judicial role. This case is yet another attack on the ability of people to make their own choices regarding their reproductive futures, as part of a concerted and decades-long effort to limit access to abortion. Furthermore, the reasoning employed in this case could open the door to challenges to other FDA drug approvals, threatening the balance between agency experts and judges and creating uncertainty about consistent access to medication; and

Whereas, In 2022, the state of Michigan enshrined the right to reproductive freedom in its state constitution. The April 7 order in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine undermines that right by limiting Michiganders’ access to safe abortion and miscarriage treatment. This court-imposed restriction would eliminate a widely-used option for abortion, which could have a particularly harsh impact on systemically and historically marginalized individuals, such as black and brown communities and those with low incomes; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives, That we condemn the April 7, 2023, order by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, in the case Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA; and be it further

Resolved, That we denounce in the strongest possible terms any and all efforts to limit access to abortion in Michigan and throughout the country.