One California Republican signed onto a brief supporting abortion pill

Republicans may be trying to downplay abortion as an election year wedge issue, but more than half of House Republicans are asking the Supreme Court to allow a lower court ruling banning an abortion pill used by millions of patients to stand.

That included only one California House member: Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale (Butte County). House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Bakersfield Republican, did not sign the brief.

The Supreme Court is considering a request by the Department of Justice to stay a ruling this month by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk revoking the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. 

The drug, typically used in combination with the drug misoprostol, have been used to end pregnancies through 10 weeks — and very safely for the most part. 

More than 5 million people have used mifepristone since it was approved. Complications after medication abortions occur “in no more than a fraction of a percent of patients,” according to a 2018 report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 

LaMalfa joined 124 Republican House members and 24 GOP senators in signing a friend of the court brief filed Tuesday by Americans United for Life. The brief asks the court to keep in place the ruling by Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. 

“The FDA’s unlawful deregulation of chemical abortion drugs subverts Congress’ public policy considerations and safeguards for patient safety,” the brief read. 

Unlike many California GOP House members who represent swing districts where abortion rights are popular, LaMalfa doesn’t have to fear much political blowback.  He  represents a district where Trump won 58% of the vote in 2020. 

Congressional Democrats submitted their own brief to the court in support of keeping mifepristone available. Signed by 203 members of the House and 50 senators, it said the lower court ruling “has no basis in law, threatens the Congressionally mandated drug approval process, and poses a serious health risk to pregnant individuals by making abortion more difficult to access — when access has already been seriously eroded in the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization” that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. 

Reach Joe Garofoli: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @joegarofoli

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