BREAKBREAK,
The ruling preserves broad access to mifepristone, confirming the pill’s approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Supreme Court of the United States has decided to block lower court rulings that would restrict the pill mifepristone, one of the drugs used in half of all abortions in the country, while the lawsuit continues.
The decision comes in the wake of an appeal by the U.S. Department of Justice and pill maker Danco Laboratories.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk had on April 7 granted a request from anti-abortion prosecutors to temporarily suspend the approval of mifepristone as he weighed a case about whether the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made a mistake more than two decades ago. made when approving the medication.
An anti-abortion coalition called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine was one of the plaintiffs suing the FDA over mifepristone’s approval.
Kacsmaryk’s order would have effectively removed mifepristone from the US market. But his decision gave the Biden administration seven days to appeal before the order took effect.
The government’s appeal took the case to New Orlean’s 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on April 12, which kept mifepristone available but also upheld restrictions from Kacsmaryk’s decision that would have reversed access to the 2016 standards.
Those restrictions include allowing the use of mifepristone only up to seven weeks of pregnancy, instead of 10 weeks, as the FDA has allowed in recent years. It would also require multiple in-person doctor visits and prevent mifepristone from being sent through the mail.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.