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The Supreme Court hearing on Wednesday he will rule on the availability of a widely used abortion pill, the first major abortion case on his record since the repeal of the right to abortion abortion more than a year ago.
The action creates a high price on the drug, mifepristone, which could reduce access to drugs that are used in more than half of all diseases in the United States. It could also have implications for the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration, which approved the pill more than two decades ago.
The Supreme Court is now in the unusual position of making a decision on abortion even after many politicians have declared that they will leave that question to the states. Until a court decision is issued, the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug remains in place, delaying the possibility of a sudden discontinuation of the drug.
The judges discussed the matter in their meeting on Friday, the private meeting of the nine.
The Supreme Court has not set a date for oral argument in announcing that it will hear two consolidated cases, FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, No. 23-235, and Danco Laboratories v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, No. 23-236.
The Biden administration asked the court to take up cases involving challenges to the brick after a division of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling blocking access to the drug. The three-judge panel said that the pill would remain legal but with limited restrictions on patient access.
Inside his requestAttorneys for the Department of Justice described the appeals court’s decision as unprecedented in questioning the FDA’s wisdom. Such a decision, they added, “would threaten to seriously disrupt the industry.” product and prevent the FDA from fulfilling its legal obligations in accordance with its law. scientific judgment.”
Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian-based legal advocacy group that has filed cases for consumers against abortion and women’s and transgender rights, representing the challengers. In shortThe group’s lawyers argued that the Supreme Court does not need to consider it, and called the decision of the appeals court a “modest decision” which “only restores the protection of the consider that millions of women are using toxic abortion pills.”
The complexities surrounding the future of the pill reflect another major battle by conservative groups to limit access to abortion.
The case began in November of last year, when an umbrella group of anti-abortion medical organizations and several doctors filed a lawsuit alleging that the FDA approved the drug years ago. past
They filed their challenge in the Panhandle city of Amarillo, Texas, where only one federal judge will hear the civil suit filed there, Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk. a Trump appointee who has long opposed abortion.
In April, Judge Kacsmaryk issued a preliminary ruling voiding the FDA’s approval of the drug. Days later, a group of three judges in the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, struck down part of his decision, allowing the drug to remain on the market but with restrictions. .
The Ministry of Justice was among those who sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court, which temporarily suspended any changes to the availability of drugs while an appeal went through the lower courts.
Another three-judge panel in the Fifth Circuit ruled in August that the FDA’s original approval of mifepristone should stand, as well as its approval of a generic version in the 2019.
But the regulations that control the pill were repealed, before 2016. In previous years, the agency made changes that expanded access to the drug. Under those laws before 2016, mifepristone had to be prescribed by a doctor and picked up personally. Patients also visit the doctor three times during the abortion process.
If the appeals court’s decision is upheld, access restrictions would be enacted, prohibiting patients from obtaining a prescription via telemedicine. and from receiving it in the mail.