The lawyer arguing the case against the abortion pill mifepristone in the Supreme Court made a major mistake Tuesday, when she let slip that the drug has only caused complications “dozens of times.”

Erin Hawley, who is married to Republican Senator Josh Hawley and works for the extremist legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, represents a coalition of anti-abortion groups seeking to block access to mifepristone. The group first sued in November 2022, arguing that the Food and Drug Administration improperly approved mifepristone and that doctors who oppose abortions could be harmed if they had to treat patients experiencing negative health effects from mifepristone.

“According to Guttmacher, nearly 650,000 women take mifepristone every single year,” Hawley said in arguments before the Supreme Court, referring to the pro-abortion access research group Guttmacher Institute. “It’s no surprise that respondents have seen an increase in emergency room visits and indeed treated women suffering from abortion drug harms tens of thousands of times.”

“Excuse me, dozens of times,” she corrected herself quickly. “Women have suffered tens of thousands of times.”

That huge numerical confusion could end up costing her, but at the very least, it reveals how baseless the entire case really is.

Mifepristone, which has been proven safe through more than 100 studies, is one of two drugs used in medication abortion, one of the most common abortion methods in the country. The drug has become a crucial tool for abortion access since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

A series of reports published last week by the Guttmacher Institute found that more than one million abortions were conducted in the United States in 2023. Of those, about 63 percent were medication abortions. And that number doesn’t even account for self-managed abortions when people took medication at home, such as people living in states with abortion bans who had the medication mailed to them.

Out of all of those medication abortions, very few actually result in the kind of emergency situations that Hawley describes. A study published in February in the journal Nature Medicine looked at more than 6,000 patients who took mifepristone and the companion drug, misoprostol, used to induce abortions. Of those patients, only 0.25 percent of them experienced a “serious abortion-related adverse event.”

At about 1:40 a.m. EST on Tuesday, a 1,000-foot cargo ship careened past large concrete obstacles ahead of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, colliding with one of its structural pillars and toppling it into the Patapsco River. Mere hours later, conservatives were already hurling their racist conspiracy theories against the wall to see what sticks.

In an early morning broadcast, Fox Business attempted to tie the horrific situation—which was deemed a developing mass casualty event by the Baltimore City Fire Department—to the “wide-open border.” Via a clumsily worded, cross-wired question, Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo connected the catastrophic collapse to President Joe Biden’s immigration policy.

“Let me also get your take on what’s going on in terms of world affairs. The White House has issued a statement on this saying that ‘there’s no indication of nefarious intent in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge,’” started Bartiromo. “The ship involved in the collapse of the bridge is 948 feet long, called The Dali, a Singaporean-flag container, but of course you’ve been talking a lot about the potential for wrongdoing or potential for foul play given the wide-open border. That is why you have been so adamant.”

Maria Bartiromo tries to link the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse in Baltimore to "the wide open border" pic.twitter.com/bkMdvFNa3g

A construction crew had been performing maintenance on the bridge at the time of its collapse. So far, two have been rescued, while a search continues for another six people in the water.

The area around Baltimore, which is just a one-hour drive from D.C., constitutes one of the most heavily trafficked sections of the country. The Key Bridge offered an alternative route along Interstate 95, the East Coast corridor, and was used by approximately 35,000 people a day, according to Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld.

The bridge’s loss—and its subsequent blockade in the river—also shuts off the Port of Baltimore from its shipping route.

But even though the FBI had already determined that the crash was not the result of terrorist activity, other conservatives still joined the digital pile-on, including self-avowed misogynist Andrew Tate and far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who baselessly pegged the accident as a “cyber attack.”

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday on whether the abortion pill mifepristone was improperly approved, in a case that could decimate access to abortion nationwide.

The case arrived at the Supreme Court after a lengthy legal roller-coaster. Mifepristone’s status currently remains unchanged until the high court issues a ruling. Mifepristone is one of two drugs used in medication abortion, one of the most common abortion methods in the country. The drug has become a crucial tool for abortion access since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, with nearly 28,000 additional doses of abortion pills provided in the six months after Roe fell alone.

A coalition of anti-abortion groups, represented by the extremist legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, sued to block access to mifepristone in November 2022. They argued that the Food and Drug Administration improperly approved mifepristone, despite the fact that more than 100 studies have proven the drug to be safe. They also claim that doctors who oppose abortions could be harmed if they had to treat........

© New Republic