Your Body Should Not Finance Their Failures -By Fransiscus Nanga Roka

It is unacceptable that a woman who needs contraception should have to go through unaffordable surgery. Thyroid eye disease patient should be warned of potential irreversible hearing loss. A Supreme Court verdict should not be needed for a schoolgirl to get a toilet and menstrual products.

For America: the Paragard and Tepezza lawsuits, for India: a landmark ruling on menstrual-health alternatives, share one common political flaw—they sing praises of bodily autonomy as institutions then place costs onto people when protections are insufficient.

In Georgia, Paragard litigation centers around the claim that the copper contraceptive device shatters while being taken out of a patient, resulting in pain and needing more surgery — and could ultimately mean sterility. Leigh Martin May is the judge overseeing a consolidated action against companies including Teva and CooperSurgical. These are allegations, not established findings that every device is defective the Court says.[3]

That distinction matters. In February 2026, Teva triumphed over allegations from Pauline Rickard in the first federal bellwether. But one verdict in favor of the defence does not resolve thousands of other cases. Disclosing Teva schedules the second bellwether for April 12, 2027. Whereas a corporation can list litigation on their balance sheet as a contingent liability, an injured patient lives with the costs every day.

Tepezza begs one other question: Were patients given information to be able to balance the benefits of treatment with the chance of hearing risk. The FDA label now warns of possible permanent severe hearing loss and urges baseline, on-treatment, and posttreatment assessment. That risk is an established fact; exercises in misrepresentation and liability will need to be proved.

The core accountability test is mercilessly simple: Who was aware of what, when did they come to know this and how promptly was that knowledge conveyed to the patients?

Approval, however, is not a replacement for ongoing monitoring. There is no such thing as an incomprehensible explanation for which a consent signature can provide reparative value. But compensation never replaces every lost kettle.

In contrast, India provides a very different answer under law. 6 In 30 January 2026, the Supreme Court acknowledged menstrual health as a component of constitutional entitlements associated with life and education in Dr. Jaya Thakur v. Government of India. Nick was able to provide free sanitary products and separate toilet facilities for the girls at school. Here the judgment faces a structural injustice: How can education in any meaningful sense be available when menstruation is an obstacle to attending?

A constitutional win also requires working plumbing, good buying and enforceable accountability. A right without funding is in danger of being a finely worded account of continued deprivation.

The facts of these cases differ in both law and evidence. On their own, however, they require a transition from repair — often too late to repair anything at all — to enforced prevention.

First, regulators must set firm deadlines for evidence assessment and communication of major safety signals. Manufacturers are to be transparent with all relevant analyses, and independent researchers receive the data necessary—always restricted in a way that preserves privacy—to replicate industry conclusions.

Third, clinicians should denormalize material risks and evidence authentic policy discussion. Routine practice of hearing-monitoring advice with tepezza Counseling conversations about the contraceptive risks of removal should educate patients on applicable events and avoid scaring them away with unsupported claims.

Third, courts should facilitate relevant discovery so it proceeds quickly, prevent unnecessary delay and (along with any negotiated settlement) transparently publish compensation criteria. Settlement confidentiality should not prevent law enforcement from using or disclosing personal information while maintaining access to safety findings in the public interest.

Fourth, governments should provide specific budgets to finance commitments on menstrual health, conduct independent inspections of schools, establish accessible complaints systems and publicly report on failings. Implementation should be designed with girls and disability advocates.

Finally, regulators should exchange credible safety data without delay across borders. Yet it cannot be acceptable that patients elsewhere in the world have to wait for litigation in America before they can learn about bodily harms.

How quickly a product is available in the market or how gloriously a court pronounces a right is not the metric of advancement made by medicine. It is whether people can exercise control over their own bodies without paying for institutional failure in pain, silence or exclusion.

Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya and Managing Partner Law Firm Victorious Indonesia