Abortion pill studies cited in ruling set for Supreme Court are retracted

Two of the studies cited in a ruling that suspended federal approval of the abortion pill mifepristone were retracted by a medical journal earlier this week.

Sage Publishing said it issued the retractions from the journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology because of methodology issues and conflicts of interest. The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in March on the case — about access to mifepristone, the drug used in medication abortions — which cited the studies.

Medicated abortions account for about half of all abortions, according to according to Guttmacher Institute, an organization committed to advancing reproductive rights.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk cited these now-retracted studies in his decision to suspend the Food and Drug Administration's authorization of mifepristone. A federal appeals court overturned parts of the ruling, only keeping restrictions that prohibit patients from receiving the pill in the mail.

Kacsmaryk primarily cited one of the studies from 2021 to justify that anti-abortion rights medical groups and physicians had a right to bring their case to the court. In his order, he wrote that they have that right because «they allege» that the effects of «chemical abortion drugs» can put a lot of pressure on doctors during complications and emergencies. Along with some other key findings, the cited study alleged that «chemical abortion significantly increased the risk of an emergency room visit.»

A 2022 study that Kacsmaryk also used in his order is based on the same dataset as the 2021 study and has most of the same authors. It analyzes the increased risks of concealed medical abortion during an emergency room visit. The judge used the study to illustrate what he argued