A federal judge in Tucson has refused to block some of the strictest rules in the nation on the use of abortion drugs. 
 
 The rules, which were approved by the Arizona Legislature in 2012 and will take effect on Tuesday, restrict the use of a medication to induce abortions during the early stages of pregnancy to the first seven weeks. 
 
 The rules also restrict the use of the drug, mifepristone, to protocols approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000. That early approval called for the drug to be given in higher doses than is customary today, and only in doctors’ offices in the first seven weeks of pregnancy. Since those rules were first approved, doctors have found that a lower dose of the drug is effective, and that it can be safely taken outside doctors’ offices through the ninth week of pregnancy. 
 
 The new restrictions, argued Planned Parenthood, one of the plaintiffs in the case, would force many women to undergo unnecessary surgical abortions, and would prevent some women from getting an abortion at all — especially in Northern Arizona, where the only abortion provider offers only the medication route. The plaintiffs sought a temporary restraining order to block the rules while a legal challenge could work its way through the courts. 
 
 In denying the request on Monday, the judge, David C. Bury of United States District Court, wrote that Arizona’s rules will not unduly burden a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, since the alternative of surgical abortions remains available. The fact that some women may have to travel hundreds of miles to clinics, twice, under the restrictions, and that the process will cost more, he wrote, “do not qualify as irreparable harm.” 
 
 Judge Bury, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote that it is “unlikely that plaintiffs will prevail on the merits of the constitutional claims.” In seeking an injunction, he wrote, the plaintiffs “have not established serious questions going to the merits nor that the hardship balance tips sharply towards them.” 
 
 Attempts to require the narrow F.D.A. standards have been passed in several Republican-led states, and lawmakers have argued they are protecting women’s health from unauthorized, “off-label” use of drugs. 
 
 Similar laws have been overturned in North Dakota and annulled by Oklahoma’s Supreme Court. Courts in Ohio and Texas let the laws stand with some exceptions, including considerations of the health of patients who might face risks from surgical abortion. 
 
 Arizona’s attorney general, Tom Horne, said in a telephone interview that the state needed to prove only that it had a rational basis for the law, and that the F.D.A. rule provided that. He said that Judge Bury’s finding that the plaintiffs were unlikely to win the case on the merits “would be an indication that we’re likely to win.” 
 
 Planned Parenthood said it would continue to press its legal challenge to the law. 
 
 Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement, “It is outrageous that politicians are interfering in a doctor’s ability to provide the highest quality medical care for women in Arizona.” 
 
 She added, “This is not over — we will continue to fight for Arizona women with everything we’ve got.” ||||| PHOENIX — New restrictions on drug-induced abortions will take effect this morning as had been scheduled. 
 
 U.S. District Judge David Bury issued an order Monday afternoon rejecting a bid to block the restrictions while the legality of the 2012 law is litigated. 
 
 Bury rejected the arguments by attorneys for Planned Parenthood and the Tucson Women’s Center that the burdens on them and their clients of having to live within the law in the interim outweighed the state’s interest in imposing the regulations. 
 
 Monday’s order is far from the last word. Attorneys for the challengers, Planned Parenthood and the Tucson Women’s Center, still have an opportunity to prove to Bury the restrictions violate the liberty and privacy rights of patients by imposing “an unconstitutional burden on their right to choose an abortion.” 
 
 Challengers also contend that denying some women the right to terminate a pregnancy through a pill rather than through a surgical procedure violates patients’ “rights to bodily integrity.” 
 
 But in refusing to issue the injunction, Bury had to conclude the challengers are not likely to win their case. 
 
 Attorney David Brown of the Center for Reproductive Rights called the ruling “disappointing.” 
 
 But the decision is a victory for the anti-abortion Center for Arizona Policy, which pushed for the law’s adoption. 
 
 The fight is over the two medical organizations’ use of mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug known as RU-486, and misoprostol, a drug taken at home 24 to 48 hours later to ensure that the fetus is expelled. Attorneys for challengers said their doctors have determined that combination is effective in terminating a pregnancy through the ninth week. 
 
 But HB 2036, the 2012 law that will now take effect, says any medication used to induce abortion must be administered “in compliance with the protocol authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” The FDA has approved RU-486 only for the first seven weeks, and only when given in two doses, each one administered by a physician. 
 
 The ruling is expected to affect more than 800 women a year who, based on abortion records from last year, would be candidates for the more simple procedure. 
 
 In Northern Arizona, Planned Parenthood says the new state-mandated procedure will eliminate the option for all abortions at its Flagstaff clinic because the rules require a doctor to be available more than the one day a week she is now. 
 
 Bury acknowledged the government cannot ban abortions prior to viability. And he said it also cannot place an “undue burden” on that right or place a “substantial obstacle” in the path of women seeking to exercise that right. 
 
 But Bury, in his 14-page ruling, said he does not believe this legislation does either. He said the law reflects the legitimate goals of the Legislature to protect women from “dangerous and potentially deadly off-label use of abortion-inducing drugs” and requires that doctors abide by the procedures tested and approved by the FDA. 
 
 “In other words, the primary, if not the sole, purpose of the statute is maternal health,” the judge wrote. “The government has a legitimate interest in advancing the state of medical knowledge concerning maternal health and prenatal life.” 
 
 He said surgical abortions, which have a record of being “extremely safe” when performed through 13 weeks of pregnancy, remain an alternative. 
 
 Brown said that choice should belong to the woman, not the Legislature. 
 
 Bury also rejected the contention by challengers that there is a “clear advantage” to allowing drug-induced abortions through the ninth week because many women do not discover they are pregnant until after the seventh week. 
 
 None of the arguments overcomes the conclusion that state legislators had a “rational basis” for the regulations. 
 
 Brown, however, said Bury is using the wrong legal standard. 
 
 He said the only question should be whether the new regulations advance the cause of women’s health. Brown said that is quite different from the fact that there may be equally safe options available that some women may find less desirable. ||||| PHOENIX (AP) — The most stringent restrictions in the nation on the use of abortion drugs were allowed to take effect Tuesday by a federal judge's ruling in the latest in a series of court fights over Arizona abortion laws. 
 
 U.S. District Judge David C. Bury on Monday refused to stop the new rules just hours before they were to take effect. Opponents of the rules said they would continue to challenge the restrictions in court. 
 
 Bury made his ruling in response to a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood Arizona and the private abortion clinic Tucson Women's Center, who say the rules severely infringe on a woman's ability to have an abortion. He was asked to grant an injunction that would have blocked the rules from taking effect. 
 
 The rules were released in January by the Arizona Department of Health Services. They ban women from taking the most common abortion-inducing drug — RU-486 — after the seventh week of pregnancy. Existing rules allow women to take the abortion pill through nine weeks of pregnancy. 
 
 Planned Parenthood estimates that 800 women would have had to get surgical abortions in 2012 if the rules were in effect then. An attorney for the organization also told the judge last week that the new rules could force its Flagstaff abortion clinic to suspend operations. 
 
 In his ruling, the judge acknowledged that the new rules will make it more difficult for some women in Arizona, especially those in the northern part of the state, to get abortions as they have to travel farther and make more trips to clinics. But he said they aren't obstacles big enough to show that the rules should be blocked. 
 
 "The court finds that the injunction is not in the public interest," Bury said. 
 
 Attorney Mike Tyron, arguing the case for the state, described the rules as a simple shift in abortion regulations that amount to a minor inconvenience for women — and are not the heavy-handed change that opponents make them out to be. 
 
 The Arizona Legislature in the past few years has approved a number of aggressive anti-abortion measures. A House of Representatives-approved bill that is being considered by the Senate would allow for surprise, warrantless inspections of abortion clinics. Proponents of the bill say it protects women from clinics that are not up to health standards. Opponents say it puts women at risk and violates their privacy. 
 
 The Arizona rules limit RU-486 to use under the Food and Drug Administration drug label approved in 2000, which uses a much higher dosage. That dosage is no longer routinely followed because doctors have found much lower dosages are just as effective when combined with a second drug. 
 
 The rules require that the drug be administered only at the FDA-approved dosage no later than seven weeks into a pregnancy instead of nine weeks, and that both doses be taken at the clinic. The usual dose is lower and now usually taken at home, decreasing the cost and chance of complications. 
 
 Ohio and Texas have similar laws requiring the use of only FDA-approved protocols for drug-abortions that have been upheld by federal courts, although those states have exemptions for women whose life is endangered, who have severe health problems or for whom surgical abortion would not be appropriate. Arizona's law doesn't allow for exemptions, making them the most stringent in the country. State courts in Oklahoma and North Dakota have blocked similar rules. 
 
 The Center for Arizona Policy, a powerful anti-abortion group that pushed the 2012 law, has pushed a series of anti-abortion bills. Two of those, a ban on Medicaid money for any of Planned Parenthood non-abortion services and a ban on abortion after 20 weeks, have been blocked by federal courts. 
 
 "When Planned Parenthood loses, women win," said Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy. "It's common-sense regulations protecting the health and safety of women considering an abortion." 
 
 The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Planned Parenthood, says it will not drop its fight despite the ruling. 
 
 "This law serves no purpose other than to prevent Arizona women from using a safe alternative to surgical abortion and force their doctors to follow an outdated, riskier and less effective method. This is what happens when politicians, not doctors, practice medicine," attorney David Brown said.
– As of today, women in Arizona face the strictest rules in the nation regarding the use of the abortion drug RU-486, reports AP. A federal judge declined to block the rules from taking effect while a legal fight over them makes its way through the courts. The upshot is that women in the state will be able to use the drug only through the first seven weeks of pregnancy, two weeks fewer than women elsewhere. Arizona's legislature approved the change in 2012, and Planned Parenthood sued, arguing that the move will create undue hardships for women and force hundreds to have surgical abortions instead. In northern Arizona, for example, the lone abortion provider offers only the drug option, reports the New York Times. Federal Judge David C. Bury disagreed, saying that while the stricter rules will make it tougher for women, they won't create obstacles that violate their right to an abortion on constitutional grounds. He added that he thinks Planned Parenthood is going lose the larger court fight anyway. About 800 women a year are expected to be affected by the ruling, reports the Arizona Daily Star.