So there you have it. Missouri, Kansas and Idaho think it’s of paramount importance to keep up the rates of teen pregnancy, lest they lose a congressional seat here or there or a few bucks in federal handouts. One might ask whether this sounds humane or even sane, but to ask the question is to answer it.
Here’s the background on this ghastly argument. It started with the Supreme Court’s ruling in a lawsuit brought by a passel of anti-abortion fanatics that aimed to roll back the Food and Drug Administration’s approvals of mifepristone dispensing by mail. The lawsuit persuaded federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Amarillo, Texas, one of the Trumpiest of Trump-appointed federal judges, to overturn FDA approvals dating to 2020 and throw the drug off the market.
The Supreme Court overturned his ruling and an appellate court ruling. Its grounds were that none of the plaintiffs in the case had themselves suffered an injury from the FDA policy — so none of them had “standing” to bring the suit under constitutional rules in the first place.
The three states’ amended lawsuit, filed in Kacsmaryk’s court on Oct. 11, is designed to circumvent the standing issue. That required the states to show that they’ve suffered an “injury” from the FDA policy. Their argument is that medical abortions, or “chemical abortions,” erode their population, leading to those adverse consequences for the size of their congressional delegations (Idaho has two representatives, Kansas four, Missouri eight) and their grip on federal program dollars.
To be absolutely fair, that isn’t the states’ only injury claim. They also maintain that complications experienced by women taking abortion drugs will create a burden on their Medicaid budgets.
This would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical. The states’ lawsuit discloses how much they’ve spent on women who have needed emergency room care as a result of such complications. In 2022, they report, Idaho’s estimated costs ranged from a total of $839.20 to a maximum $13,556; Missouri’s estimate ranged from $2,524 to $6,274.
