The American Nurses Association (ANA) is relieved that the U.S. Supreme Court has protected patient access to mifepristone, a medication used to treat a range of critical health care conditions including abortion. With this decision in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, mifepristone will remain widely available to individuals in the state of Texas and the FDA’s decades-long approval of this safe and effective reproductive medication remains intact.
“This decision is undoubtedly an important win in efforts to protect patients’ basic rights to reproductive health care options,” said ANA President Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, PhD, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN. “As much as today’s decision is a relief, it should also serve as a stark warning that evidence-based sexual and reproductive health care is being threatened every day, especially after the upending of Roe vs. Wade less than a year ago. Advocacy to protect reproductive justice must continue.”
As the largest group of health care professionals in the U.S., nurses have an ethical obligation to safeguard patient privacy and ensure that patients can make their own decisions based on full information and available options. ANA affirms that sexual and reproductive health care must include access to contraception and abortion care.
Reproductive health equity is a basic human right. As the case continues, ANA joins millions of patients and health care professionals urging the courts to exercise the utmost restraint in interfering with safe and effective healthcare delivery.
