Washington state governor stockpiles abortion drugs

Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday said he had directed the state’s Department of Corrections to buy 30,000 doses of abortion drugs at a cost of nearly $1.3 million. Those are enough doses to supply the state for three years, Inslee said. The shipment arrived in late March. He also said the University of Washington obtained 10,000 more doses—enough for a fourth year.

Why is he doing this? The country is waiting for a federal judge in Texas to rule on the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of mifepristone for use with misoprostol to induce abortions. Many argue the FDA improperly approved the medications to be used for abortions. The judge has indicated that he will rule soon, but not what his decision will be.

Dig deeper: Listen to Jeff Palomino’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about how Google is skewing the search results for women looking for information about pregnancy and abortion.