Hochul: NY building five-year stockpile of abortion drug after ruling
ALBANY – New York will hoard supplies of the abortion medication misoprostol after FDA approval of another drug, mifepristone, was struck down by a federal judge in Texas last week, Gov. Hochul announced Tuesday.
“MAGA, anti-abortion extremists, legislators and judges alike are hell-bent on continuing down this path,” the governor said at a virtual event hosted by Planned Parenthood of Greater New York on Tuesday. “They’re coming after all forms of reproductive health care.”
The state’s Department of Health is finalizing the purchase of 150,000 doses of misoprostol — at a cost of roughly $100,000 — to keep New Yorkers supplied with pregnancy-ending medication over the next five years.
Misoprostol and mifepristone are typically taken together as a so-called “abortion pill” to terminate early-term pregnancies. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk last week ordered a hold on the FDA’s approval of mifepristone from 2000.
At almost the same time, Washington state U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice barred authorities from restricting access to mifepristone in at least 17 states where Democrats had sued to protect the drug’s availability.
Kacsmaryk stayed his own decision for seven days to allow the Biden administration’s Justice Department to file an appeal.
“This isn’t just an attack on abortion, it’s an attack on democracy,” Hochul said Tuesday. “Courts have never before revoked a science-backed decision made by the FDA.”
While the two drugs work best in tandem, experts say misoprostol will work safely by itself.
“Mifepristone only increases the effectiveness of the medication regimen, it also shortens the time interval and thus improves the patient experience, so forcing healthcare providers to transition to another regimen that is less patient-centered is dehumanizing to the patient,” Dr. Gabriela Aguilar, medical director of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, told The Post Tuesday.
Securing misoprostol supplies is the latest effort by the Hochul administration to safeguard abortion rights – an issue the governor campaigned on heavily last year – in New York following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
If mifepristone is taken off the market, Hochul announced Tuesday, the state will add up to $20 million to the $35 million made available last year to abortion providers to help them expand capacity and boost security.
“Last year, the attacks were on abortion procedures,” the governor said. “This year, medication abortion. What’s next? Contraception? Birth control? Well, I’m here to say, ‘Not New York. Not now, not ever.'”
Hochul is also proposing in the upcoming state budget to expand abortion access on college campuses, give $25 million more to providers, increase Medicaid reimbursement rates, and allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control.
Those ideas are not expected to face much resistance from Hochul’s fellow Democrats who control the Legislature despite an ongoing stalemate over bail reform that has dragged the budget process past its original April 1 deadline.
“We are talking about what we can as a state,” state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) said Tuesday about New York’s response to the Texas ruling.
But some Empire Staters took issue with the governor rallying other elected officials around the flag of taxpayer-funded abortion.
“Gov. Hochul announces plans to stockpile enough misoprostol to abort 150,000 unborn babies over the next five years, and to force health insurers to cover it,” the New York State Catholic Conference tweeted in response to Hochul.
“New York is already the abortion capital of the country, yet our leaders keep finding new ways to expand it even further,” a second post added. “Women who want to keep their babies and need support are too often an afterthought as politicians pander to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.”
