[[link removed]] Ms. Memo: This Week in Women's Rights
April 3, 2024
From the ongoing fight for abortion rights and access, to elections, to the drive for the Equal Rights Amendment, there are a multitude of battles to keep up with. In this weekly roundup, find the absolute need-to-know news for feminists.
The Comstock Act Is a Backdoor Approach to a National Abortion Ban—And Justices Alito and Thomas Are Interested [[link removed]]
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Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito attend a ceremony for the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on Dec. 18, 2023. (Jacquelyn Martin-Pool / Getty Images)
BY SHOSHANNA EHRLICH | A general consensus seems to have emerged after last week’s oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine that the Supreme Court is likely to rule that the anti-abortion physicians and their umbrella group, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, lack sufficient legal grounds to challenge the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 loosening of restrictions on the abortion drug mifepristone. Legal standing to bring suit in federal court requires (among other considerations) that the party bringing suit has suffered an actual or threatened injury.
Opposition to abortion does not confer standing, no matter how passionate. Nor is it conferred by “a long chain of remote contingencies,” as Solicitor General Prelogar argued on behalf of the FDA. Notably, these are the twin pillars supporting the plaintiffs’ theory of standing.
As Adam Unikowsky puts it, it relies upon the attenuated possibility that “some woman … might take mifepristone and experience an extremely rare complication. … She might randomly wander into one of the emergency rooms where the plaintiff-doctors work … leaving [them] with no choice but to treat the woman [which] will violate the doctors’ conscience, stress the doctors out or take them away from something else they’d rather be doing.”
Dismissing the lawsuit for a lack of standing would give the Court an off-ramp, without appearing to retreat from the fierce anti-abortion stance that it staked out in Dobbs. It would also prevent creating “chaos in the processes for drug development, approval and modification,” as argued in an amicus brief filed by the pharmaceutical industry, which would create “a shadow of lasting uncertainty over every FDA approval and invite spurious lawsuits challenging FDA’s settled safety and effectiveness determinations.”
While dismissal based on a lack of standing would be a welcome result, it is not a guarantee given the Court’s anti-abortion supermajority. But even if this occurs, the apparent zest manifested by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas towards the Comstock Act from 1873 brings a lurking danger fully out into the open.
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The Abortion Pill and the Hypocritical Oath [[link removed]] Project 2025: Republicans’ Plan to Ban Abortion Pills Nationwide [[link removed]]
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State ERAs Can Protect Reproductive Rights Post-Dobbs [[link removed]] Abortion Bans = Sex Discrimination [[link removed]]
What we're reading
Because it's hard to keep up with everything going on in the world right now. Here's what we're reading this week:
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"How
Patty
Murray
Used
Her
Gavel
to
Win
$1
Billion
for
Child
Care"
—
The
New
York
Times
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[link removed] [[link removed]] Tune in for a new episode of Ms. magazine's podcast, On the Issues with Michele Goodwin on
Apple Podcasts [[link removed]] + Spotify [[link removed]] .
The fight to enshrine gender equality in the U.S. Constitution is more urgent than ever. Nobody knows this better than Susan Frietsche—who recently secured an incredible victory for women in the state of Pennsylvania in terms of then power of the Equal Rights Amendment as it relates to reproductive freedom. In this episode, we delve into how Susan’s work sets an important precedent for protecting women’s rights—and how it relates to the fight to secure the federal ERA in the Constitution.
We hope you'll listen, subscribe, rate and review today!
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