West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said his office stands ready to fight an appeal filed by GenBioPro, a company that makes a generic version of the abortion pill mifepristone.
Attorneys for GenBioPro filed a notice of appeal on Thursday.
The company is appealing the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia Huntington Division’s dismissal of its challenge—that West Virginia's Unborn Child Protection Act is preempted because it conflicts with the FDA’s decision to approve and regulate mifepristone for medication abortion. The challenge also asserts that this law and some state telehealth laws are unconstitutional.
Judge Robert Chambers of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia Huntington Division said the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision has made it clear the regulation of abortion falls on the states, and that West Virginia was regulating health care, not the company itself, in the Unborn Child Protection Act.
“As we did in federal district court, we stand ready to defend West Virginia law to the fullest,” Attorney General Morrisey said. “There’s no doubt in my mind the new Unborn Child Protection Act is not preempted by federal law and that all of these statutes are constitutional.”
In August, the district court dismissed the preemption claim against the state’s Unborn Child Protection Act and the constitutional challenges entirely, but it allowed the preemption challenge to the telehealth provisions to proceed. Two months later, the company nixed the telehealth challenge to pave the way for an appeal.
“This issue is very near and dear to my heart. I stand firm in the belief that it is our duty to protect innocent life—I will always stand for the most vulnerable of our society and the sanctity of life,” Attorney General Morrisey said.
Original source can be found here.