KFF Health News’ ‘What the Health?’
Episode Title: Abortion and SCOTUS, Together Again
Episode Number: 326
Released: Dec. 14, 2023
[Editor’snote:[Editor’snote: This records was created utilizing both transcription software application and a human’s light touch. It has actually been modified for design and clearness.]
Julie Rovner: Hello, and invite back to “What the Health?” I’m Julie Rovner, chief Washington reporter for KFF Health News, and I’m signed up with by a few of the very best and most intelligent health press reporters in Washington. We’re taping today on Thursday, Dec. 14, at 10 a.m. As constantly, news occurs quickly, and things may’ve altered by the time you hear this. Here we go. We are signed up with today through video conference by Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico.
Alice Miranda Ollstein: Good early morning.
Rovner: Lauren Weber of The Washington Post.
Lauren Weber: Hello, hi.
Rovner: And we invite to the podcast for the very first time Riley Griffin of Bloomberg News.
Riley Griffin: Thanks for having me.
Rovner: Later in this episode, we’ll have my interview with University of Maryland teacher Jen Golbeck, who is most likely much better understood to anybody on social networks as “GR Mom,” the lady who takes in half a lots special-needs golden retrievers at a time. She’s co-author of a brand-new book called “The Purest Bond” that discusses why our love for canines is not simply all in our heads. Initially, this week’s news.
We will begin with abortion today. In news, Alice, that you expected recently, the Supreme Court has actually chosen to hear a case out of Texas relating to the abortion tablet mifepristone. Depending upon how the court guidelines, it might make abortion less readily available even in states where it stays legal. Alice, this might not be as substantial as it looks at very first blush due to the fact that they didn’t take the case that could have affected the general approval of the drug?
Ollstein: That’s. They’re essentially taking up what the 5th Circuit chose, not what the district court chose. The district court, as we keep in mind extremely significantly, chose that FDA approval of mifepristone years back was done improperly and would have transferred to successfully prohibit the drug across the country. What’s at problem before the Supreme Court are subsequent FDA choices to make the tablet more quickly available, however those are actually crucial and sweeping. I suggest, I seem like the mail shipment piece is getting a great deal of attention, however it’s not simply that.
These are choices that, one, authorized a generic variation of the tablet, that made it less expensive and more available all over the nation. It broadened its usage from simply the very first 7 weeks of pregnancy to the very first 10 weeks of pregnancy. Those essential weeks are when a great deal of individuals recognize they’re pregnant and decide about that. And more just recently, permitting retail drug stores to give the tablets and,