SCOTUS allows access to abortion pill mifepristone until Friday

The Supreme Court punted an expected Wednesday decision on the legality of the most commonly used abortion method in the US.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ordered his temporary administrative stay of a Texas judge’s April 7 ruling to block the FDA’s decade’s-long approval of mifepristone to be extended until 11:59 p.m. Friday.

Mifepristone is used in conjunction with misoprostol for first-trimester abortions — a medication regimen that has been used to abort first-trimester pregnancies by nearly six million American women since it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000, according to the agency.

A pair of legal rulings on opposite sides of the country two weeks ago put the availability of the drug in jeopardy — when more than a dozen red states had banned most abortions following the Supreme Court’s rejection of Roe v. Wade last June.

Texas US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — an appointee of former President Donald Trump — took the unprecedented step of putting a hold on the 23-year-old federal approval of mifepristone.

The hold prompted Washington US District Judge Thomas Rice — an appointee of former Barack Obama — to preserve access to the drug in 17 states where Democrats sued to protect availability.

A federal appeals court then modified the ruling to allow mifepristone to remain available with limitations while the litigation is sussed out — saying the drug can no longer be mailed and can only be given to women who are less than seven weeks pregnant after they see a doctor three times.

The FDA had long established that the drug was safe to use for women who were up to ten weeks pregnant.

The right-leaning Supreme Court is now tasked with deciding if the mifepristone restrictions will be enforced as the legal challenge of the FDA approval proceeds.

The Biden administration and drugmaker Danco Laboratories have called on the court to reject the limitations on mifepristone, arguing they are contradictory and spell chaos for providers.

In the wake of the legal uncertainty, New York officials said they would stockpile 150,000 doses of misoprostol, which experts said would end pregnancies safely without mifepristone, although the process would be longer than the two-drug combo.

A poll released last week and conducted before the legal clamor found that 53% of Americans disagreed with bans on abortion pills.

With AP wires