On March 26, MSNBC hosted Erin Morrow Hawley, the lead attorney arguing before the Supreme Court against expanded access to the abortion pill mifepristone, for an interview that saw anchor Katy Tur failing to correct her suggestion that the medication is dangerous.
Tur began the interview by congratulating Hawley on arguing her first case in front of the Supreme Court and emphasizing Justice Neil Gorsuch’s question about why her clients, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, can’t just opt out of providing abortion care instead of imposing “a nationwide injunction” on mifepristone.
Hawley said that in emergency situations practitioners are not always able to opt out. After Tur repeatedly pressed her on the question, suggesting doctors could opt out in advance, Hawley reverted to fearmongering about the medicine, saying, “The FDA really was saying before the Supreme Court today that even acknowledging that one in 25 women go to the emergency room after taking mifepristone, that that didn’t matter.”
In fact, according to an amicus brief to the court, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other medical societies, hundreds of studies have proved mifepristone to be safe and effective.
The commonly used medication claims a 99.6% success rate, fewer than 0.5% of women experience “serious adverse reactions,” and the risk of death is “almost non-existent.” (The “one in 25” women in the ER claim is near the top end of a range of 2.9% to 4.6% from the FDA.) The FDA reports that only 32 women have died after taking mifepristone, and it is unclear if the drug is the cause of death in all of these instances.
The amicus brief states, “Few drugs have been so extensively studied after their approval by FDA and can boast such a clear and compelling record of safe use.”