What makes a good physician? Along with communication skills, empathy and integrity, medical schools teach their students science rooted in evidence-based medicine and patient care skills that emphasize patient autonomy. The ongoing legal battle over approval and access to mifepristone, a widely used abortion pill, threatens to undermine these basic tenets of medicine.
Relying on the decision of Judge Kacsmaryk or the three-judge panel of the appellate court—all political appointees with no scientific background—to undermine the FDA’s authority constructs a harmful narrative to students that medicine, though tested and validated, can be challenged without scientific rationale.