Pitt Professor weighs in on FDA Abortion decision
Greer Donley's work focuses on jurisdictional questions surrounding abortion laws
While some have applauded the FDA for its recent decision to allow pharmacies to dispense abortion pills, other members of the repro rights movement are a little less enthusiastic about what it will actually mean for people who seek medication abortion care.
The Food and Drug Administration finalized a rule change this week that broadened the availability of abortion pills to large chains and mail-order companies. While the federal government has adopted that policy, it still conflicts with many state laws–leaving a wild west landscape of legal challenges and jurisdictional questions pertaining to who will determine how abortion care works in different commonwealths across the country.
Greer Donley, an abortion rights expert and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said that the FDA didn’t need to oppose the pharmacy certification requirement because it forced a lot of pharmacies to jump through unnecessary hoops. Greer said the antiabortion movement has painted the FDA as a left-wing agency.
“On the other hand, I think there are people in the abortion rights movement, myself included, who actually think that the FDA has regulated medication abortion way too harshly and it has refused to follow the science and regulated it as all other drugs,” Donley said.
Donley thinks it’s inevitable that the agency can’t remain politically neutral.
“It has a statutory duty to act on certain things that come before it,” Greer said. “And sometimes those decisions are going to have political consequences, even when the agency is just trying to follow the science.”
Much of Greer’s work has focused on jurisdictional questions about how different state or federal laws dealing with abortion may conflict with one another. How will that resolve itself? No one knows just yet, but those are the questions legal observers and experts are looking for answers.
“States are going to assume that they can regulate abortion more harshly than the FDA,” Greer said. “That's kind of an open legal question and the courts have to answer it. So we'll see that that'll play out at some point.”