In a victory for the pro-life movement and states’ rights, a three-judge panel for the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that West Virginia can enforce its law restricting abortion, rejecting an attempt by a drug manufacturer to override state protections for unborn children.
The ruling in GenBioPro v. Raynes centered on whether federal drug law preempts state abortion restrictions. GenBioPro, the manufacturer of the chemical abortion drug mifepristone, had argued that the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug should override state laws banning or restricting its use. The court disagreed.
The court’s 2-1 decision affirms the authority of states to regulate abortion and other high-risk medications within its borders, even when the drugs in question have federal approval. The panel concluded that the 2007 amendments to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) did not strip states of their right to enact minimum safety standards or protect unborn life.
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, writing for the majority, explained that the FDCA “falls well short of expressing a clear intention to displace the states’ historic and sovereign right to protect the health and safety of their citizens and that “Preemption in this instance would upend the federal-state balance by supplanting every state law tangentially touching a federal domain.”
