PHOENIX β The head of the stateβs chief anti-abortion group says she will move to block any legislation to allow doctors in Arizona to prescribe RU-486 to terminate pregnancies using the new standards adopted this week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, contends the FDA acted improperly β and with political motives β in deciding the drug technically known as mifepristone can be safely used to terminate a pregnancy through the 10th week.
βThe pro-life movement and pro-life legislators are not going to support a protocol that allows abortion medication through 10 weeks of pregnancy,β no matter what the FDA now says is safe and effective, she said.
The contention the state should ignore the FDA standards is directly opposite what Herrod was arguing just a week ago.
At that time, the FDA was still having the manufacturer of RU-486 label the drug as useful only for the first seven weeks of pregnancy. But the FDA does not forbid doctors from off-label use of drugs. Physicians from Planned Parenthood and other organizations were routinely using the drug through nine weeks, and at a much lower dosage.
Herrod got anti-abortion lawmakers to approve legislation requiring doctors to use the seven-week FDA standards then in effect or face loss of their medical privileges. She argued those standards are there to protect the safety of women and that doctors should not be able to deviate.
On Thursday, Gov. Doug Ducey signed that restriction, knowing that the FDA standard had changed. Ducey said he is open to follow-up legislation to clarify the matter.
But Herrod said Arizona law should block doctors from following the new FDA standards. She contends the question of what is safe is far from settled.
She acknowledged that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has long concluded that RU-486 is safe and effective through nine weeks, and at a dosage of just one-third of what the FDA labeling had suggested until this week. But she dismissed that organizationβs findings as unreliable.
βThe American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists supports legal abortion for any reason,β Herrod said.
Herrod instead looks to the views of groups like the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. But she acknowledged they have their own biases, including a desire to outlaw abortion entirely.
The situation the state now faces is the result of a lawsuit.
In originally adopting a 2012 law, legislators said doctors have to use RU-486 only in accordance with FDA labeling.
Last year, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Richard Gama voided that law as an unconstitutional delegation of the Legislatureβs authority. He said thatβs because the FDA could change the standard at any time, effectively giving the federal agency the ability to change state law.
In response, lawmakers approved β and Ducey on Thursday signed β legislation saying that doctors must follow the FDA label as it existed at the end of last year, even if the agency changes its mind in the future.
On Friday, the state filed a notice it will appeal Gamaβs decision. But, for the time being, his order remains in place and the measure Ducey signed is set to take effect later this summer.
Bryan Howard, president of Planned Parenthood Arizona, said his organization will sue if lawmakers do anything to leave the now-outdated protocols in place or impose a standard in Arizona that is more restrictive than the FDA now says is safe.
He already has precedent on his side.
Two years ago, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the state from forbidding doctors from using the drug beyond the seven-week FDA standard then in effect. Justice William Fletcher pointed out that the agency does not ban off-label use.
