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I can't seem to find a discussion on this yet, and I'm very curious to hear this site's interpretation of events. Yesterday, judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that the FDA should rescind it's approval for a commonly-used pill for abortions, mifepristone. The narrative I'm reading in mainstream media frames this decision as so cartoonishly insane that I'm struggling to see how it can be accurate. However, I'm also struggling to see where exactly the narrative is misleading.
First, the civics-101 explanation of how an agency like the FDA or the Fed should work is that certain regulatory problems are too technical and change too quickly based on new science for lawmakers to deal with them directly. Therefore, Congress delegates its power to a group of skilled experts who can react to the cutting edge of research and make reasonably policy. Of course, this is the civics-101 explanation and reality is presumably much more complicated, but the point is that laypeople who don't really understand the subject matter, like judges or members of Congress, should not be the ones making the final decision on technical questions.
Kacsmaryk's decision is framed as exactly this happening---the FDA made a complicated judgement about the safety of mifepristone based on their expertise and a non-expert judge decided to invalidate it based on their personal disagreements with the technical science. Articles emphasize quotes from the judgement where he explicitly disagrees with the FDA's interpretation of studies: "“Here, F.D.A. acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns — in violation of its statutory duty — based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions.", etc. Unfortunately, the actual decision (Edit: better link from ToaKraka) is very long with most of the pages being about legal details like establishing standing, making it hard to find the true reasoning behind it (though props to NYT for emphasizing the primary source so prominently, beat my expectations for news sources).
There has to be more going on here than a random judge deciding that they are more qualified to decide technical medical questions than actual experts; as a general rule, political opponents aren't ever this insane. What are the details I'm not understanding in the decision that make this more reasonable?
Pretty unfortunate timing of this top level post. The one just below it, shows the partisanship of allegedly purely fact-based federal agencies. So I would support more oversight and protection against human rights violations, in this case right to life, that are perpetrated under the guise of science.
The FDA was only in charge of saying whether the drug itself is safe and effective (or safe enough technically I suppose) though. Whether the drug SHOULD be used is outside the FDA's purview. The FDA isn't committing the (proposed) humans rights violations itself.
You could outlaw most abortion and still have the FDA sign off on the drug as safe but it only to be legal to use for cases where the legislature thinks it needs to happen (incest/rape etc.).
The science says this drug ends pregnancies X% of the time with A B and C side effects Z% of the time when taken in Y dosages under Z circumstances. Whether ending a pregnancy should happen is not something the FDA has any say in. So that isn't a human right violation perpetrated under the guise of science.
The FDA says you CAN use this to terminate a pregnancy. But they can't tell you if terminating the pregnancy is legal or moral. Assuming abortion is a human rights violation and is allowed then that would be the fault of the state and federal legislatures for not outlawing it rather than the FDA, surely? Or arguably the fact that enough people don't agree that it is a human rights violation so as to elect politicians who would carry out that agenda.
Otherwise the ATF is on the hook for any human rights violations carried out by firearms they have deemed legal under the relevant statutes as well. Which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
Don't give them ideas...
That does raise a question, though, is it really necessary to strike at mifeprestone specifically, then? Roe already is striking at the sort of higher echelons of law on this issue. I guess the 2022 midterms did show that there still isn't quite enough pressure all around to just formally illegalize abortion, but still.
Its always better to have multiple angles of attack practically i would say. Especially if the public doesn't seem to be entirely onboard. Banning abortion isn't popular but if you feel its murdering millions of babies then morally you probably should not let that stop you. Same with the getting rid of gas cars or whatever to prevent the (putative) end of the human race.
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