Court ruling could alter the Divided States of Abortion

Weeks ago, nearly two dozen Republican state attorneys general signed on to a lawsuit pending in Texas that seeks to block access to a drug used to induce abortions.

Twenty-two Democraticrun states have weighed in opposing the lawsuit.

When the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade constitutional right to abortion last year, it appeared regulation of the procedure was relegated to the states.

Maps showing which states allow broad access to abortions and which ones greatly limit or ban them follow a familiar pattern based on other cultural touchstones, such as gun control, coronavirus precautions or, as some have noted, the Electoral College.

It’s not an absolute redstate/blue-state divide, though it’s pretty close.

But all states would be affected if a federal judge in Texas revokes decades-old approval of a key abortion drug. Such a ruling, if upheld, could change the availability of and procedures for abortion in California, even though the state has some of the nation’s strongest protections of reproductive rights.

Medication abortions using pills increased significantly during the pandemic and now account for more than half of the abortions in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The advent of telemedicine also factored into the trend.

More than half of California providers offer abortion only via medication, according to The New York Times.

Medication abortions don’t require a trip to a clinic — or in some cases out of state — nor involve an invasive procedure such as vacuum aspiration, which had been the more common method until recently.

The lawsuit filed by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine seeks to reverse the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of mifepristone, which is followed by the use of misoprostol in medication abortions. The anti-abortion group contends that the FDA failed to follow