US Supreme Court Is Uncertain About Restricting Access To Mifepristone, An Abortion Pill

Washington: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States gave a hint that it is unlikely to restrict access to the abortion pill. The justices were unsure that the physicians and anti-abortion organisations contesting the prescription had the necessary legal standing to bring the case.

The administration of President Joe Biden presented arguments to the courts over an appeal of a lower court’s decision favouring the plaintiffs, which would restrict the prescription and distribution of the drug known as mifepristone. In a year with a presidential election, the case brings reproductive rights back on the Supreme Court’s agenda.

The lawsuit puts the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) regulatory activities in jeopardy. These steps include permitting pharmaceutical abortions up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy rather than seven, and allowing the pill to be sent by mail without the woman having to visit a doctor in person beforehand.

The majority of the arguments by the justices concerned whether the plaintiffs had the legal right to file their claims of impending harm from the FDA’s activities. The plaintiffs claim that by managing any emergency issues that may develop in women who take the medication—which the FDA authorised in 2000—they will be compelled to violate their consciences.

The plaintiffs do not come “within 100 miles of the kinds of circumstances” required to prove legal damage, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the judges.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, drew attention to the federal statutes that now protect medical professionals from being forced to perform or assist in abortions.

Just to be sure, no doctor may be coerced against their consciences to perform or assist in an abortion under federal law, right? Prelogar asked Kavanaugh.

“Yes, we believe that federal conscience protections provide broad coverage here,” Prelogar said.
According to the government, the “conscience” injuries raised by the challengers are particularly unrelated to the FDA’s activities since they concern being coerced into carrying out or finishing an abortion.
According to these plaintiffs, “the conscience objection is strictly to actually participating in the abortion to end the life of the embryo or foetus,” Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett concurred.

However, Barrett informed Erin Hawley, an attorney for the plaintiffs’ conservative religious liberties organisation Alliance Defending Freedom, that the physicians who are members of the medical association did not show any proof that they had ever taken part in such an event.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, is considering the most significant case pertaining to abortion since it reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which had established a constitutional right to an abortion in 2022.

The conservative justice Samuel Alito, who wrote that ruling, pushed Prelogar to say who may file a lawsuit against the FDA. “Is there a way to file a lawsuit and obtain a court decision stating that what the FDA did was legal?” questioned Alito. “Is it not possible for someone to contest that in court?”

According to the FDA, mifepristone has been shown to be “extremely safe” after being used for decades by millions of women in the US and throughout the globe, and “study after study” has demonstrated that “serious adverse events are exceedingly rare.”

Prelogar informed the judges that the plaintiffs “simply disagree with the agency’s analysis of the data before it.” However, that does not provide permission for judges to question the agency’s expert opinions.

Following the 2022 decision, a number of states passed Republican-backed legislation severely limiting or outlawing abortion. Since then, over 60% of abortions performed in the US are now medication-assisted, making it the most popular means of terminating a pregnancy. To accomplish pharmaceutical abortions, mifepristone is administered with misoprostol, another medicine.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal justice, was questioned about what she saw as an inconsistency between the plaintiffs’ stated legal damage and the outcomes they are pursuing in their complaint.

“They’re saying, ‘We want an order prohibiting anybody from having access to these drugs at all, because we object to being forced to participate in this procedure,'” Jackson said. “And I guess I’m just trying to figure out how that could be their right.”

The attorney for Danco Laboratories, which makes mifepristone, Jessica Ellsworth, informed the court that the plaintiffs’ stance would disrupt not just the approval of one medicine but also “virtually every drug approval” and risk assessment modifications for drugs that the FDA has been making for decades.

In 2022, a lawsuit was filed challenging the FDA’s approval of the pill and its subsequent measures to increase access. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, located in New Orleans, limited the scope of a federal judge’s decision that would have essentially taken the medicine off the market to 2016 and 2021 FDA moves that increased its availability.

The 5th Circuit’s decision is still awaiting the Supreme Court’s assessment. We anticipate hearings by the end of June.

In the U.S. election on November 5, Biden, who is running for reelection, is a vocal supporter of abortion rights. Prior to the election, he and other Democrats worked to make this the main point of contention with the Republicans.