When they say that the doctors lack standing, what they’re saying is that the doctors have not suffered harm as a result of the FDA’s action. The doctors are not obligated to provide the medication that the FDA has authorized. Unless the doctors can prove that they, personally, have been affected negatively by the decision, there can be no court-ordered remedy for their injured moral fee-fees.
On the other hand, a woman that is unable to obtain an abortion because a state banned a drug that the FDA had approved would have standing; she would be able to demonstrate that the law had directly, personally affected her ability to get the health care she needed.
As far as I know, you are generally correct that you can’t sue a government becuase they didn’t ban a thing. But you can sue when the gov’t has banned a thing, and that ban has caused you direct harm. This would be especially true if her lack of access to reproductive care meant that she had suffered serious physical harm, or lost her ability to have children in the future.
No, that’s not what it’s saying at all.
When they say that the doctors lack standing, what they’re saying is that the doctors have not suffered harm as a result of the FDA’s action. The doctors are not obligated to provide the medication that the FDA has authorized. Unless the doctors can prove that they, personally, have been affected negatively by the decision, there can be no court-ordered remedy for their injured moral fee-fees.
On the other hand, a woman that is unable to obtain an abortion because a state banned a drug that the FDA had approved would have standing; she would be able to demonstrate that the law had directly, personally affected her ability to get the health care she needed.
That suit wouldn’t work either as you can’t sue the government for not prohibiting a medicine even if it does actual harm.
…But that’s not what I was saying.
As far as I know, you are generally correct that you can’t sue a government becuase they didn’t ban a thing. But you can sue when the gov’t has banned a thing, and that ban has caused you direct harm. This would be especially true if her lack of access to reproductive care meant that she had suffered serious physical harm, or lost her ability to have children in the future.