AG Skrmetti Joins 21-State Coalition in Urging U.S. Supreme Court to Reiterate the People’s Right to Regulate Abortion
Nashville- Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti today joined 20 other state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court of the United States to reject the FDA's attempt to push a national mail-order abortion regime in violation of federal law, of state laws, and of the Court’s Dobbs opinion.
“Tennesseans have chosen, through the democratic process of representative government, to prohibit elective abortions and strictly regulate abortion-inducing drugs,” General Skrmetti said. “The federal bureaucracy has explicitly sought to undermine Tennessee’s legitimate act of self-government at every turn. We are asking the United States Supreme Court to protect the ability of states to govern themselves, to allow our federal republic to function as a federal republic, and to stop this attack on the separation of powers at the core of our constitutional system.”
In the brief, the attorneys general write, "The day Dobbs was decided, President Biden directed his Administration to ensure that abortion drugs are 'as widely accessible as possible,' including 'through telehealth and sent by mail.'”
The coalition argues that FDA's efforts to impose a mail-order elective-abortion regime disregards the protections for life, health, and safety adopted by numerous States’ elected representatives.
The attorneys general continue, "The Administration claims that it has the power to make abortion drugs broadly accessible despite contrary determinations by States and despite laws that States have enacted to protect life, health, and safety in the use of those drugs...That claim is wrong."
The coalition concludes that due to the FDA’s lack of authority to establish a mail-order abortion regime, and States’ statutory authority returned in the Court’s Dobbs decision, the public interest “strongly weights against the FDA’s effort to override duly enacted state laws.”
General Skrmetti was joined in the filing by state attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Read the brief in its entirety here.
###