Besides stockpiling mifepristone, the drug at the center of a national medication abortion firestorm, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Wednesday that if the drug is taken off the market, that New York will commit up to an additional $20 million to abortion providers to support access to other methods of care.

Hochul said she will also working with the Legislature on a bill to require private insurers to cover misoprostol, a similar drug, when it's prescribed off-label for abortion.

But Emma Corbett, state director of communication for Planned Parenthood, Empire State Acts, is pushing for further action because of the nature of recent rulings around medication abortion.

“I can’t understate how truly unprecedented this entire situation is,” Corbett told Capital Tonight. “No court has ever ordered the FDA to take a medication off the market because of their own judgement about the safety and efficacy of the medication.”

Before the state budget is passed (the budget was due on April 1, but still hasn’t been put to bed), Corbett is urging lawmakers to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates for abortion care, including medication abortion, add $25 million in grant funding for abortion providers and pass the “Reproductive Freedom and Equity Program," sponsored by state Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas state Sen. Cordell Cleare.

“This program is going to do a couple of key things, among them, helping the facilitation of and increasing access with practical support for care delivery. And that’s going to provide sustained funding to abortion providers and abortion support funds to do things like expand staff capacity,” Corbett explained.

Rulings around the drug mifepristone have been coming in furiously since last Friday when a U.S. District Court judge in Texas ordered the suspension of the FDA's approval of the drug. 

While mifepristone has been legal in the U.S. for 23 years, questions about the FDA's original approval of the drug were raised by individuals and groups who are against abortion, including the Christian Medical & Dental Association. The groups argued that the FDA expedited the approval of mifepristone and that use of the drug has led to serious bleeding and even death.

The FDA argued strenuously against the allegations.

Just on Wednesday, an appeals panel ruled that the drug could remain available, in a limited way, while a lawsuit against the FDA wends its way through the court system. But in the same ruling, the appeals panel blocked mifepristone from being sent through the mail, from being prescribed by a non-doctor and from being prescribed after seven weeks of pregnancy — all expansions made by the FDA years after the drug was first approved in 2000.

Though they won a partial victory, advocates for abortion rights are sounding the alarm. 

“Just in the last week, we have seen two rulings from a federal judiciary that reject science and law. The most recent that came overnight, the court decided that it had the authority to re-write mifepristone’s label,” Corbett said. 

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday announced that the Justice Department will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block the federal appeals court ruling.