The ruling will not affect the use of the abortion pill until May 14, when a judge will consider imposing restrictions.
Washington—— Supreme Court Women’s access to the widely available abortion pill will not be affected until at least Thursday while judges consider whether to allow restrictions drug, mifepristone, to take effect.
Justice Samuel Alito on Monday ordered that women seeking abortions be allowed to continue getting birth control pills at pharmacies or through the mail without going to a doctor in person. It prevents the restrictions imposed on mifepristone federal appeals court Not effective yet.
The courts are dealing with the latest abortion Conservative majority sparks controversy after four years Overturning Roe v. Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright.
The case before the court stems from a lawsuit filed in Louisiana seeking to overturn U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations on how mifepristone is prescribed. The state claimed the policy undermined local prohibition and questioned the drug’s safety. The drug was first approved in 2000 and has been repeatedly deemed safe and effective by FDA scientists.
Lower courts concluded Louisiana was likely to prevail, and a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that mail access and telemedicine visits should be suspended while the case is pending.
This drug is most commonly used in abortions in combination with another drug, misoprostol. medical abortion In 2023, the last year for which statistics are available, abortions accounted for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States.
The current dispute is similar to one filed in court three years ago.
Later, lower courts also sought to limit the use of mifepristone in cases brought by anti-abortion doctors. They filed the lawsuit months after the courts overturned Roe’s case.
The Supreme Court blocked the 5th Circuit’s ruling from taking effect due to dissenting votes from Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas. Then, in 2024, the high court unanimously dismissed the doctors’ lawsuit on the grounds that they had no legal right or standing to sue.
Amid the current controversy, mainstream medical groups, the pharmaceutical industry and congressional Democrats have all spoken out, warning the court against restricting the drug’s use. Drug companies said the ruling against abortion opponents would upend the drug approval process.
The FDA relaxed several initial restrictions on the drug, including who can prescribe it, how it is dispensed and what types of safety complications must be reported.
Despite these decisions, abortion opponents have been challenging mifepristone’s safety for 25 years. They filed a series of petitions and lawsuits against the agency, broadly accusing it of violating federal law by ignoring safety concerns about the drug.
President Donald Trump’s The Supreme Court’s executive branch has been unusually quiet. Although the federal statute is at issue, it declined to file a written brief recommending what the court should do.
The case has put Trump’s Republican administration in a difficult position. Trump relies on political support from anti-abortion groups, but also sees voting question Opinion poll results show Americans generally support abortion rights.
Both sides viewed the silence as an implicit endorsement of the appeal’s ruling. Alito is both the judge handling emergency appeals in Louisiana and the author of the 2022 decision that declared abortion not a constitutional right and returned the issue to the states.
Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey
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