US abortion pill access could hinge on whether doctors had right to sue

 A prominent U.S. lawsuit to ban the abortion pill mifepristone has focused on the drug's safety and approval process. But the outcome may ultimately rest on a different issue: whether Ingrid Skop, an anti-abortion doctor in Texas, and other physicians behind the lawsuit can justify suing in the first place.

That’s because of the legal concept known as standing, which holds that plaintiffs must have suffered harm or face an imminent injury traceable to the defendant — in this case, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which approved the pill in 2000.

The deeply divisive issue of abortion rights in America has returned to the national spotlight since the U.S. Supreme Court last year overturned its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized the procedure nationwide. Since then, 14 states have enacted near-total abortion bans.

Skop and 10 other doctors submitted their testimony when the case began in November. She said she was harmed by the FDA expanding access to the pill because she has treated dozens of women at her hospital's emergency room with mifepristone complications.

Skop said that diverted her attention from her primary practice of caring for women in labor. She said she might also have to surgically complete an elective abortion, which would violate her so-called conscience rights that protect doctors from being forced to provide care they morally oppose.

Some legal experts said Skop’s rationale, and that of the other doctors behind the lawsuit, doesn’t meet the bar for standing because the connection between the FDA’s approval of the pill and the alleged harm is too far removed.

If courts were to adopt the plaintiffs’ argument for standing, these experts said, emergency room doctors could sue over almost any regulation that impacted their workload, from oversight of guns to alcohol to teen drivers.

"The plaintiffs have not come close to establishing standing," said Leah Litman, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, who is not involved in the case. "I would hope it ends up being a major factor in how this case gets decided."

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/us-abortion-pill-access-could-101417804.html