Class-Action Suit Challenges Import Ban on Abortion Drug

In the first U.S. legal battle over the French abortion drug RU486, a class-action lawsuit was filed Tuesday challenging the constitutionality of the FDA’s import ban on the drug.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, was brought by a pregnant California woman who was prevented from bringing the drug into New York last week by U.S. Customs Service agents. The other plaintiff in the case is the newly formed Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

Abortion rights groups, in an effort to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s ban, had alerted the government that the woman, Leona Benton, would arrive at Kennedy Airport on a British Airways flight last Wednesday.

Benton had planned to take the pill in front of reporters, but Customs Service agents detained her and confiscated the controversial drug, which is produced by the French pharmaceutical company Roussel-Uclaf.

The suit alleges that the FDA ban violates the right of privacy by imposing a substantial obstacle on women who want a non-surgical abortion.

It also alleges that the ban hinders doctors by preventing them from offering treatment they feel is in the best interest of their patients.

The suit seeks a court order restraining the FDA from enforcing the import ban and an order forcing the agency to return the drug to Benton, who is 6 1/2 weeks pregnant.

U.S. District Judge Charles Sifton refused to issue an emergency order Tuesday but said he will hear the matter Friday after both sides have submitted written arguments.

RU486 is available in France and Britain.

The suit states that while federal law prohibits importation of drugs not approved for use in this country, in 1988 the FDA issued guidelines allowing for the importation of small quantities of unapproved drugs for the personal use of individuals bringing them into the United States.

The suit alleges that several congressmen wrote to FDA Commissioner Frank Young in 1989 saying that RU486 should be excluded from the personal-use policy because “the U.S. government should not be involved in abetting abortion.”

After the letter, the FDA banned RU486 for personal use because it could “pose a risk to the safety of the user.”