OPINION:
A Texas-based federal district court judge initially restricted Food and Drug Administration distribution of the abortion pill mifepristone (“Federal appeals court limits use of abortion pill, but doesn’t ban its FDA approval,” Web, April 13). Subsequently, his ruling was appealed
for further review and application.
From a jurisdictional standpoint, the mifepristone ruling applied only to the Fifth Circuit, meaning Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. But the media, by getting in its usual tizzy over an issue about which it knows nothing, made the Fifth Circuit ruling sound as though it had national application as the Ninth Circuit of Appeals upheld the FDA mifepristone policy.
In legal consequence, the mifepristone issue involves two federal court circuits with different rulings of law as applied to a federal agency. It is here that the Supreme Court solves the dispute.
Once again, mainstream so-called have journalists failed to get the facts straight. Is it their collective ignorance of the federal court framework or their refusal to objectively report the facts when abortion is involved? One must assume the latter position.
EARL BEAL
Terre Haute, Indiana
