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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Friday night to uphold the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a commonly used abortion drug while appeals are pending after a lower court restricted the drug’s availability. I went down.
Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. suspended a lower court’s ruling on the pill mifepristone, but the freeze was set to expire at midnight. The judge made a decision about five hours before the deadline.
When judges overturned Roe v. Wade in June, a majority of conservatives said the legislature, not the courts, should make decisions about abortion policy. But the issue will soon make its way to the Supreme Court, a case with potentially wide-ranging consequences for states where abortion is legal, as well as for the FDA’s regulators of other drugs.
Here’s what could happen next:
what is at stake?
At issue is the availability of mifepristone. Mifepristone is part of his two-drug regimen, which now accounts for more than half of abortions in the United States. In the United States, more than 5 million women use mifepristone to terminate pregnancies, and dozens of other countries have approved the use of mifepristone.
A federal judge has questioned the steps the FDA has taken to expand distribution of the drug, and the New Orleans Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said last week that it would allow the drug to stay put. nevertheless imposed significant barriers to access. at the market.
This decision essentially flipped the clock back to 2016 before the FDA added a set of guidelines to ease access to the pills. Restrictions would have included blocking patients from receiving their medication by mail.
Eliminating the mail option would have serious consequences, experts say. Patients would have to miss work, pay for travel to clinics, and endure the stigma of appearing in public to seek an abortion.
The lawsuit could also pave the way for all sorts of challenges to the FDA’s approval of the drug. Legal experts say health care providers anywhere in the country may be able to challenge government policies that may affect patients.
how did we get here
The controversy goes back more than 20 years to a lawsuit by a governing group of medical organizations and a handful of anti-abortion doctors who challenged the FDA’s approval of the pill.
The case was filed in the Amarillo Division of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas and was before one federal judge. Matthew J. Kaksmalik is Trump’s appointee, a longtime abortion opponent.
Plaintiffs allege that the pill was unsafe and that the agency’s approval process was flawed. Serious complications are rare, and he cites a series of studies showing that less than 1% of patients require hospitalization.
Texas federal judge Kacsmaryk said in his preliminary ruling that the Food and Drug Administration improperly approved the drug. However, he gave the agency one week to seek urgent relief before his ruling took effect.
The Biden administration quickly appealed, and a split panel of three judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said mifepristone could remain available until the case clears the court. said.
But in addition to banning the pills from being mailed, the commission blocked health care providers other than doctors from prescribing them.
What about the case in Washington State?
Second abortion drug lawsuit progresses in federal court in Washington after 17 state Democratic attorneys general and the District of Columbia file lawsuits challenging new FDA restrictions on access to mifepristone is.
Less than an hour after Judge Kacsmaryk ruled, U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington ruled that mifepristone should be used in the 17 states and the District of Columbia appointed by President Obama. It prevented the agency from curbing availability. Although his order did not affect the entire country, the states in that lawsuit represent the majority of states where abortion is still legal.
Adam Liptak contributed to the report.
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