The Supreme Court is again diving into the abortion debate, announcing Wednesday it will take up a case involving access to drugs used to end a pregnancy.
The judge will consider a challenge by the conservative group Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine to the FDA’s expanded approval of mifepristone, part of a two-drug regimen used to induce abortion.
The expanded approval, starting in 2016, allows the drug to be prescribed online and more easily obtained by mail.
Separately, the court rejected Wednesday’s challenge to the FDA’s earlier approval of the pill from 2000.
In April, Texas federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk suspended the initial approval of mifepristone while a lawsuit challenging the drug’s safety continued.
That same day, a Washington judge issued a conflicting ruling.
The pill accounts for nearly half of abortions nationally. AP
In August, the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down part of Kacsmaryk’s initial injunction but upheld the 2016 FDA changes that made the drug more accessible.
The high court on Wednesday agreed to hear a combined version of the FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case and the similar Danco Laboratories v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case.
Medical abortions account for nearly half of termination procedures nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy group.
Misoprostol is usually used after mifepristone to induce muscle contractions and clear the uterus as part of a medical abortion. Getty Images
Mifepristone usually helps induce abortion by 10 weeks and was used in 98% of medical abortions in 2020, according to a 2022 Guttmacher study.
The Supreme Court’s decision will almost certainly have major implications for the FDA’s authority over the availability of mifepristone, which is commonly used in conjunction with misoprostol.
The case is the most high-profile abortion-related question presented to the Supreme Court since the June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. The Jackson Women’s Health Organization revoked the right to terminate a pregnancy nationwide and returned the issue to the states.
Anti-abortion activists scored a major victory in 2022 with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but has since suffered setbacks in recent elections. AFP via Getty Images
“The administration will continue to uphold the FDA’s independent approval and regulation of mifepristone as safe and effective,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
“President Biden and Vice President Harris remain committed to defending women’s ability to access reproductive care.”
Danco Laboratories, which makes mifepristone, asked the high court to take up the case again in September.
The Supreme Court’s public approval took effect after it rejected Roe v. Wade. AFP via Getty Images
“The risk and confusion arising from the Fifth Circuit’s decision is not something that women, teenage girls and the public health system should bear without this court’s review,” the company said in a petition at the time.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative advocacy group representing the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine in the case, argued that the Supreme Court should not take it into account, calling the Fifth Circuit’s decision a “moderate decision”.
The Supreme Court is likely to hear arguments in the case early next year before making a decision by the end of June.
Mifepristone will remain available nationwide while the case is ongoing.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
