The Maryland Board of Public Works issued emergency funding of over $1.3 million for chemical abortion pills Wednesday.
Access to mifepristone is currently being weighed in the courts after a group of doctors filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claiming that the agency had rushed approval of the pill without knowing the full risks to women. The board, composed of Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, Comptroller Brooke Lierman and Treasurer Dereck Davis, approved over $1.3 million in funding for 30,000 doses of mifepristone and 5,000 misoprostol Wednesday.
“Since the FDA approved the drug more than two decades ago, mifepristone has been used safely in more than 60 countries, providing critical care for women,” a spokesperson for the governor’s office told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “As other states work to tear down reproductive protections and attack access to care and medication, the Moore-Miller administration is exploring options to implement more safeguards for all Marylanders—including working with the Department of Health to explore stockpiling mifepristone.”
The stockpile was created in April when Moore announced that they would get the pills through the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) after lawsuits surrounding the pills’ access were filed, according to The Associated Press. $220,856 was given to UMMS for 5,000 doses of mifepristone and another 5,000 of misoprostol, and $1.1 million was designated for AmerisourceBergen, a drug wholesale company, for the remaining 25,000 doses of Mifeprex, a new version of mifepristone.
Lierman said that the pill supply was an “important opportunity” for the state to demonstrate its commitment to “women and our reproductive choices,” according to the AP.
A judge in Texas initially ordered that the FDA reverse its approval of the pill in April, but the decision was overruled by the Supreme Court several weeks later, allowing the approval to remain in place during litigation, with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting. The lawsuit is currently awaiting oral arguments in the lower courts
Lierman and Davis did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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