Supreme Court rules mifepristone will remain broadly available

OAN Geraldyn Berry
UPDATED 6:03 PM – Friday, April 21, 2023

The Supreme Court ordered on Friday that mifepristone should remain broadly available as litigation plays out in a lower court.

The high court’s decision followed a last-minute application by the Justice Department to halt decisions by lower courts that would severely restrict access to the drug, even in certain places where abortion is still allowed. The ruling barred patients from being able to get the drug through the mail among other restrictions.

Mifepristone, used in combination with another drug, is the most common method to terminate a pregnancy in the U.S., accounting for about half of all abortions.

The Supreme Court’s ruling, according to President Joe Biden, maintains mifepristone’s accessibility to women and FDA approval for use in early pregnancy termination. In the current legal dispute before the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals, Biden promised that his administration will fight to defend access to mifepristone.

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas criticized the majority ruling of the Supreme Court approving the Justice Department’s and Danco Laboratories’ request for an emergency order granting access to the brand-name medicine Mifeprex.

Mifepristone would be essentially taken off the market for months as the FDA changed the medication’s labeling to comply with the orders, the Justice Department and Danco said in their emergency appeals to the Supreme Court. They stated that this would prevent women from having access to a medicine that has been authorized by the FDA and is a secure substitute for surgical abortions.

In his opinion, Alito countered that reasoning. The judge ruled that the FDA may merely exercise its enforcement discretion while the court case progressed and permitted Danco to keep selling mifepristone.

Mifepristone is still accessible via mail delivery, and women can acquire the prescription without having to contact a doctor personally thanks to the Supreme Court’s majority decision to retain the status quo.

In Oregon, Governor Tina Kotek (D-Ore.) made an announcement on Thursday that the state is stockpiling on mifepristone so that Oregon patients will have access to the abortion pill regardless of what the Supreme Court decides.

The medication will still be mostly inaccessible in the dozen states that have essentially outlawed abortion in the last year, though. There are limits in other states as well that are far stricter than FDA guidelines.

The case will now be heard in the U.S. 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court has scheduled oral arguments for Wednesday, May 17^th at 1:00 p.m. CT.

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