After a federal judge in Texas suspended nationwide approval of abortion pill mifepristone, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey issued an executive order on Monday to clarify that a state law passed last year to protect abortion access from out-of-state prosecution extends to the pills as well.
The governor's office also announced that the University of Massachusetts Amherst ordered 15,000 doses of mifepristone last week, to arrive in the Bay State this week, to stockpile in event of a shortage. The university will distribute the mifepristone pills to providers.
"In the face of those efforts, our response in Massachusetts is going to be to double down for freedom," Healey said at a news conference outside of the State House.
The Democrat said that her request that UMass Amherst buy the drug was made as part of her team's planning effort before the judge ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to stay mifepristone's approval while a lawsuit challenging the safety and approval of the drug continues. The federal government is appealing the order, which was essentially contradicted by another federal judge in Washington State.
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But for Massachusetts, "nothing has changed and nothing is going to change. We're going to make sure that we stay the course here," Healey said.
Healey noted that many of the people gathered at the State House on Monday were at a similar news conference held after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling, undoing the national right to an abortion. Abortion remains legal in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said she plans to use all the powers of her office to safeguard abortion in the state.
"Massachusetts continues and always will be a beacon of hope," she said.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Healey's order was an important step to safeguard abortion in the short term, but urged the public to take action to protect it in the long term.
"The only way that we will put a stop to this is at the ballot box. We need more people in Congress who are willing to make Roe vs. Wade the law of the land," Warren said, adding, "I am asking you to get mad, to stay mad and to channel your anger into making real change."
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The doses of mifepristone purchased by UMass Amherst are enough "to ensure sufficient coverage in the state for more than one year," according to a statement from Reproductive Equity Now.
The group noted that health care providers in Massachusetts "have also agreed to purchase additional quantities to make available for patients" and the "Healey-Driscoll Administration is also dedicating $1 million to support providers contracted with the Department of Public Health in paying for these doses."
Access to the most commonly used method of abortion in the U.S. plunged into uncertainty Friday following conflicting court rulings over the legality of the abortion medication mifepristone that has been widely available for more than 20 years.
For now, the drug the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2000 appeared to remain at least immediately available in the wake of two separate rulings that were issued in quick succession by federal judges in Texas and Washington.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. But that decision came at nearly the same time that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an Obama appointee, essentially ordered the opposite and directed U.S. authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats sued in an effort to protect availability.
The extraordinary timing of the competing orders revealed the high stakes surrounding the drug nearly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and curtailed access to abortion across the country. President Joe Biden said his administration would fight the Texas ruling.
Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, said the decision is actually protecting women's health.
"The FDA should have never approved mifepristone because its process was rushed for political reasons and, more importantly, in its approval, the FDA considered pregnancy to be a life-threatening condition, which it is not. But because abortion is an industry, offering financial and political benefits to all involved in its growth, the FDA ignored women’s safety and wellbeing," she said.
"Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision allows the truth to be examined. When women’s health and the health of our culture are at stake, such an examination is critical and should be welcomed, regardless of how you feel about abortion," she added.
The whiplash of the conflicting decisions is likely to put the issue on an accelerated path to the Supreme Court.
Both Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll weighed in on the topic Sunday on Twitter.
"Extremism is being substituted for decades of proven science," House Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts added.
The State House News Service and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
