- Today the Center for Reproductive Rights and Michigan reached a settlement that removes the state’s ban on the use of mifepristone, formerly known as RU-486. The agreement resolves all of the Center for Reproductive Rights' challenges to Michigan’s mandatory delay for abortion law except one: Michigan refuses to permit providers to collect payment prior to the expiration of the mandatory 24 hour waiting period, for services rendered such as ultrasounds or pregnancy tests. The Center for Reproductive Rights obtained an injunction blocking this part of Michigan’s law, permitting providers to receive payment for their services pending further litigation on this issue.
"Michigan’s desire to settle this lawsuit should signal to other states that seeking to stamp out early medical abortion through back door semantics won’t work," said Julie Rikelman, attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead counsel in the case. "We’re pleased with the settlement, but disagree with Michigan’s refusal to ensure that physicians are compensated for medical services. This is just another form of discrimination against physicians who provide abortions," added Rikelman.
The settlement reached between the Center for Reproductive Rights and the state also eliminates the requirement that all abortion literature be state-produced. Under the agreement, if state-issued materials are not available, the physician is free to create appropriate documents. The settlement also acknowledges that misoprostol has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use with mifepristone, or RU-486, in abortion procedures, rescinding the state’s earlier ban on all early medical abortions using these drugs. Michigan also dispenses with the 24-hour waiting period if the woman needs an emergency abortion to save her life. The law as written eliminated exceptions for emergency procedures.
Michigan’s law, signed by Governor Engler in December 2000, which won’t be effective for a minimum of sixty days from the settlement date, prohibited state-mandated abortion literature from describing any procedure that used a drug that hadn’t been specifically approved by the FDA for use in an abortion. The drug misoprostol, FDA approved as ulcer medication and used "off-label," is necessary to successfully complete an abortion using mifepristone, or RU-486. Under Michigan’s law, which amended a pre-existing mandatory delay and biased counseling requirement, if the state-issued pamphlet didn’t discuss a procedure, it could not, by law, be performed.
Plaintiffs in Northland Family Planning Clinic v. Jennifer M. Granholm, Attorney General of the State of Michigan, including Northland Family Planning Clinic, Inc.; Northland Family Planning Clinic Inc.-West; Northland Family Planning Clinic Inc.-East; Womancare of Southfield, P.C.; and Summit Medical Center, Inc., are represented by Julie Rikelman and Simon Heller of the Center for Reproductive Rights, and local attorney David A. Nacht of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
