SCOTUS is considering the legality of abortion pills
Image: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP
The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a case challenging whether the FDA improperly expanded access to the abortion pill mifepristone, marking the Court’s first abortion case since it overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Background: Mifepristone, alongside the drug misoprostol, is typically taken during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy to induce an abortion or manage an early miscarriage. Over 5 million women have used mifepristone since it was first approved by the FDA in 2000.
- The drug’s popularity accelerated in 2016, when the FDA repealed a series of laws that required three doctors’ visits to obtain mifepristone, limited its use to the earliest weeks of pregnancy, and banned mailing pills to patients.
- By 2023, medication abortions accounted for 63% of all US abortions, with the vast majority using the mifepristone/misoprostol combination.
Yesterday’s legal challenge before SCOTUS is seeking to reverse that trend. In oral arguments, anti-abortion/pro-life activists asserted that the FDA didn’t adequately study mifepristone’s side effects before expanding access to the abortion pill, saying regulators underestimated the frequency of severe side effects like infection and hemorrhaging.
However, a majority of Justices seemed to agree with the Biden admin’s argument that the plaintiffs in this case – emergency room doctors who morally object to treating mifepristone patients – don’t have standing to sue, since they’re already protected from treating such patients under federal law.
- Biden admin officials also cited what they called an exhaustive scientific record to support the FDA’s mifepristone decisions, including evidence that the drug has been safely used by millions of Americans since 2000.
👀 Looking ahead… SCOTUS’ final decision is expected by late June/early July. If the Court rules against the FDA’s approval of expanded access to mifepristone, it would roll back prescribing rules to what they were in 2011, shutting down telemedicine access to mifepristone and restricting its use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy.
📊 Flash poll: How do you feel about the lawsuit before SCOTUS seeking to reverse the FDA’s approval of mifepristone?
See a 360° view of what media pundits are saying →
Sprinkles from the Left
- Some commentators argue that the plaintiffs in this case don’t have any standing to sue – and that even if they did, the court system has no business overruling the scientific judgment of an executive agency dedicated to such medical research.
- Others contend that as a matter of law, the FDA clearly has the authority to make mifepristone available and to later increase its availability – but given the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court and its recent decisions, the outcome is anything but clear.
- “The Supreme Court’s latest abortion case has an obvious answer” –WaPo Editorial Board
- “The mifepristone case should be an easy one for the Supreme Court. But will it be?” –Erwin Chemerinsky, LA Times
- “How the Supreme Court abortion pill case is built on discredited science” –Caitlin Gerdts and Heidi Moseson, Ibis Reproductive Health
Sprinkles from the Right
- Some commentators argue that the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case can’t show how the FDA’s decisions surrounding mifepristone would cause them harm, and that the Court should rule they lack the standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place.
- Others contend that the Supreme Court appears poised to rule in favor of keeping the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, which would deal a blow to Joe Biden and other Democrats’ plan to run on abortion in the November election.
- “The Supreme Court and Mifepristone” –WSJ Editorial Board
- “The Supreme Court might help kill the Democrats’ abortion playbook” –Jeremiah Poff, Washington Examiner
- “Mail-order abortion scheme prioritizes politics, not health care” –Emily Erin Davis, Washington Times
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