Pedestrians walk before the U.S. Supreme Court on February 29, 2024 in Washington, DC.
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday is considering whether to take care of widespread access to the abortion pill mifepristone since it poses a serious challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process for the drug.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, is hearing oral arguments on the Biden administration’s appeal of lower court rulings limiting access to the pill, including its availability by mail.
Mifepristone is used as part of an FDA-approved two-drug regimen most abortions nationwide.
The case poses a serious test for the conservative-majority court, which in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling establishing a girl’s constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.
A gaggle of anti-abortion doctors represented by the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom is spearheading the legal challenge, alleging that the FDA didn’t adequately evaluate the drug’s risks.
The FDA has the support of the pharmaceutical industry, which warns that any doubts in regards to the approval process by untrained federal judges could cause chaos and inhibit innovation.
Danco, the manufacturer of the brand-name version of the Mifeprex pill, agrees with the FDA in oral arguments.
The oral argument got here nearly a yr after Texas U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a drastic ruling that completely invalidated FDA approval of the pill, leading abortion rights activists to panic that it will be banned altogether.
Last April, the Supreme Court stayed that ruling, meaning the pill stays widely available for now.
Then in August, the New Orleans-based fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed Kacsmaryk’s decision on appeal but left his ruling in place, finding that the FDA’s decision to lift restrictions starting in 2016 was illegal.
Both parties filed a cassation appeal to the Supreme Court. In December, the court allowed the Biden administration’s appeal defending subsequent FDA decisions, but selected not to listen to the challenge to the unique approval of mifepristone in 2000. The issue is due to this fact not before the justices.
Instead, the court will concentrate on the FDA’s subsequent actions, including the unique 2021 decision to make it available by mail, which was finalized last yr.
The court may also consider decisions issued in 2016 to increase the period during which mifepristone will be used to terminate pregnancy from the seventh week of pregnancy to the tenth week and to scale back the number of in-person visits to patients from three to at least one. In one other move in 2016, the FDA modified the dosing regimen, concluding that a lower dose of mifepristone was sufficient.
One way for the court to choose the case can be to search out that the challengers lack standing to bring the lawsuit, which might mean that judges wouldn’t wrestle with the difficulty of FDA approval. If the court goes this route, it would go away the door open for a future case.
In court documents, the FDA argued that the doctors and others who filed the lawsuit lacked legal standing because they might not show any injuries that may very well be linked to the drug approval process.
Doctors don’t prescribe mifepristone, but they are saying they’ve been injured because they may very well be needed to treat patients who’ve taken the pill and have serious unintended effects. Because they oppose abortion, any actions they’re forced to take to assist the girl complete the method would make them complicit, the plaintiffs argued of their case. court papers.
The consequence of this case could have far-reaching practical consequences if access to the drug is restricted, with many states in search of to limit access to abortion within the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, abortion is definitely banned in 14 states.
