TThe Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously rejected a challenge to restrict access to the commonly used abortion pill mifepristone, with the justices concluding that a group of doctors and anti-abortion organizations had no legal basis to challenge Food and Drug’s approval of the drug. Administration. .
As a result, the lawsuit was dismissed and the abortion pill can remain widely available. “Because plaintiffs do not prescribe or use mifepristone, plaintiffs are unregulated parties seeking to challenge FDA regulation of others,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the unanimous decision.
The case centered on the affordability of mifepristone, the only drug approved specifically for terminating pregnancy, and whether the government applied a legal review process to the drug when it was released. The Supreme Court decided to hear the case after a lower court in 2023 revoked the FDA’s 23-year-old approval of mifepristone, a move that would have restricted how the pill is administered and distributed.
The restrictions, if they went into effect, would include cutting off access to the Pill through the mail, banning telemedicine prescriptions and reinstating a seven-week limit on its use – even in states where abortion remains legal.
Medication abortion has become an increasingly common and safe method of terminating a pregnancy; More than five million women in the U.S. have used mifepristone for abortions since its approval, and six in 10 abortions last year were performed via medication, up from 53% in 2020, research published in March 2024 by the Guttmacher Institute show.
Although dozens of countries have approved the use of mifepristone, including the US, its safety has come under scrutiny following the fall of the Roe v.. The plaintiffs in the case — led by a group of doctors and anti-abortion organizations — argued that the FDA did not adequately study the drug’s safety risks before approving it for sale in 2000, claiming that doctors had to treat patients who suffered from complications. of mifepristone.
The ministers, however, stated that the doctors did not suffer the type of direct harm that would give them legal grounds to file the lawsuit. The FDA also countered safety concerns about mifepristone, pointing to data documenting the drug’s efficacy and safety in successfully terminating pregnancies.99.6%of time with a lower complication rate than Tylenol.
“Plaintiffs have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and political objections to elective abortion and the FDA’s relaxed regulation of mifepristone,” Kavanaugh wrote in the decision. But “these types of objections alone do not establish a justiciable case or controversy in federal court.”
In their ruling, the justices did not address the plaintiffs’ claim that the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and subsequent modifications to allow mail delivery violated a rarely used anti-obscenity law known as the Comstock Act of 1873, which governs how the US Postal Service handles delivery of contraceptives and items considered “obscene.” Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas repeatedly invoked the Comstock Act during oral arguments. “This is an important provision. It’s not an obscure subsection of a complicated, obscure law,” Alito said. “Everybody in this area knew that.”
The ruling marks the first time the justices have considered efforts to restrict abortion since their 2022 decision to eliminate the constitutional right to abortion. Following that ruling, 14 states completely banned abortion – including medication abortion – and six states began requiring patients to consult their doctors in person before obtaining prescriptions for abortion pills.
The issue has become a rallying point for Democrats and polls show that the Supreme Court’s decision to nullify the constitutional right to abortion in 2022 it was received with disapproval of most Americans.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
