Supreme Court abortion pill ruling ties issue to Trump-Biden race

The Supreme Court’s decision to reject a challenge to the abortion pill mifepristone means the drug’s future is now firmly tied to the 2024 presidential election.

Anti-abortion groups said they suffered only a temporary setback from last week’s decision and are planning their way forward on how best to restrict access or remove the drug from the market altogether.

The court left the door open to other legal challenges, including from a trio of red states before the same Trump-appointed federal judge who initially halted mifepristone’s approval in 2023.

But instead of waiting for the courts to rule, a second Trump administration could act unilaterally through executive orders or agency rulemaking to impose strict limits on mifepristone.

“The Supreme Court did not take any subsequent challenges off the table,” said Roger Severino, a former Trump administration official at the Department of Health and Human Services.

But at the same time, Severino said the court “left the ball in the hands of the next administration to restore some semblance of safety to a very dangerous and poorly regulated chemical abortion regime.”

Although former President Trump repeatedly stated that abortion decisions are up to the states, former administration officials and advisers have telegraphed their plans for sweeping abortion restrictions, including mifepristone, if the former president regains the White House in November.

Trump’s wavering stances frustrated anti-abortion groups early in the campaign, but they set aside their criticism to focus on what a second Trump term could do for the anti-abortion movement.

“In a Trump White House, there would be an immediate defunding of HHS, FDA, EPA, that would be on day one, and we would have people who truly prioritized the lives and health of women over the interests of the abortion industry,” he said. Kristi Hamrick, strategist at Students for Life of America, referring to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“With the right people in the right agencies, we can have people who preemptively and proactively protect the lives and health of women and address the harms of these pills,” Hamrick said.

Students for Life is also pushing for the EPA to classify mifepristone chemicals as a “forever chemical,” subjecting it to stricter regulation and tracking.

“I think water pollution from abortion is part of the new cutting edge of how we approach the abortion pill market that this administration has created,” Hamrick said.

There were no explicit campaign promises from Trump on abortion. The former president avoided taking a direct stance on abortion policy for months, including the availability of mifepristone.

During an interview with Time magazine in April, Trump said he has “pretty strong opinions” on the issue and would make an announcement “probably next week.”

But that announcement never happened, as the former president walks a tightrope on abortion to avoid making the issue a political liability for Republicans.

The Biden campaign has highlighted Trump’s abortion record and was quick to point out that a Trump administration would not need the Supreme Court to act on mifepristone.

“This case provoked by Donald Trump’s allies was just a broader, ruthless tactic and strategy to prevent access to reproductive freedom everywhere in this country,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told reporters after the decision last week. “If Trump regains power in November, Trump’s allies will be ready to implement his plans to ban abortion access nationwide without help from Congress or the court.”

Abortion has galvanized Democrats in the nearly two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Wade, and Trump has struggled to decide whether to embrace or downplay his role in the decision.

During a closed-door meeting with GOP lawmakers last week, Trump urged Republicans to talk about abortion in a way that makes sense for their districts.

The former president defended the issue as a states’ rights issue, supported exceptions for certain circumstances and dubbed the party’s stance on abortion as “common sense.”

Anti-abortion advocates have become increasingly frustrated with the widespread availability of abortion medications, compounded by decisions the FDA made in 2016 and 2021 to eliminate the in-person distribution requirement and allow pharmacists to distribute mifepristone.

They hoped the Supreme Court would reimpose restrictions and limit access to the drug. But instead of agreeing with a group of anti-abortion doctors that the FDA overstepped its authority, the justices ruled unanimously, on procedural grounds, that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue.

But Severino, who is now vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, indicated that Trump’s allies have plans for what comes next.

“Some [actions] it can be done through executive orders, some can be done through regulation and then restoring the pro-life policies that President Trump implemented in his first term,” Severino said.

As leader of HHS’s Office for Civil Rights, Severino created a division designed to protect the religious rights and conscience protection of healthcare professionals.

The Biden administration dissolved that division, but Severino said he believes the Supreme Court decision strengthened federal conscience protection laws, and a new Trump administration will bring the division back to enforce them.

If President Biden is reelected, anti-abortion advocates have acknowledged the path forward will be slower, but they are still confident they will win in the states and in the courts.

“We’re not taking a linear approach to this. We’re looking at the states, we’re looking at the federal level, we’re looking at the attorneys general,” Hamrick said. “And I think there is a path forward even in states where the abortion lobby thinks they can hide behind mini-Roes in state constitutions through ballot initiatives.”

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story