OLYMPIA, Washington — Gov. Jay Inslee said the nation's first stockpile of abortion drugs in Washington state would serve as insurance against future lawsuits seeking a nationwide ban on the abortion procedure or a second presidential term by Republican Donald Trump.
Last year, in a federal lawsuit filed to restrict the availability of abortion drugs nationwide, Inslee, a Democrat, ordered the state Department of Corrections to use its pharmacy license to purchase 30,000 doses of the abortion drug mifepristone.
In June, the US Supreme Court dismissed the case and allowed mifepristone to continue on the market. But the decision left the door open for further legal challenges, and abortion rights advocates warned that the drug still poses risks.
In an interview with Reuters, Inslee, 73, said the state would maintain its reserves until the result of the Nov. 5 presidential election between Trump and Democratic U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is known.
“The Supreme Court’s decision was not decisive for the safety of mifepristone,” Inslee told Reuters at the governor’s residence in Olympia. “This is a long-term threat. People who want to take away women’s reproductive health are not going to stop last week, this week or next week. This is a decades-long effort.”
Trump has at times taken ambiguous stances on abortion, including mifepristone, which is commonly prescribed as part of a two-drug regimen to terminate premature pregnancies.
The former president suggested in August that he might be willing to direct the Food and Drug Administration to end access to the drug if he won the election, though his campaign later said he would not attempt to do so.
Trump has touted his role in appointing three Supreme Court justices who helped spearhead the court’s majority decision in 2022 to end abortion rights nationwide after five decades.
“You can’t trust them when it comes to women’s reproductive health,” said Inslee, who is leaving office in January after serving 12 years as governor.
These doses are enough to supply the state’s abortion patients for an estimated three years.
Washington has seen a surge in the number of out-of-state women traveling there for abortions since 2022, when several states — including nearby Idaho — implemented restrictions in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.
Harris and other Democrats have made abortion a major election issue this year.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, a majority of Americans believe abortion should be made legal in most or all cases.
