US Supreme Court Allows Access To Abortion Pills Freezing Lower Court Rulings

The Supreme Court upheld women’s access to a medication used in the most frequent type of abortion on Friday, April 21, rejecting lower-court limitations while a dispute is still pending.

The Ruling

As per The Guardian, the Supreme Court decided on Friday to temporarily overturn a lower court decision that severely restricted the use of the abortion medication mifepristone.

The court’s decision implies that mifepristone will still be accessible to patients in places where it was previously legal, at least for the next year while appeals are being processed.

The justices approved the justice department’s and Danco Laboratories’ urgent pleas to block a preliminary injunction imposed by a federal court in Texas. 

The ruling gave the Biden administration a win as it defended medicine access in the most recent bitter judicial dispute over reproductive rights in the US. The president commended the choice and declared that he still supported the FDA’s approval of the medication.

The Significance Of The Ruling

The verdict comes in the most critical abortion rights lawsuit since Roe v Wade was overturned last year. In the US, pill abortions account for more than half of all procedures.

While cautioning that the judgment does not necessarily foretell the case’s ultimate resolution, reproductive rights organizations welcomed the decision. 

A conservative Christian legal body filed the lawsuit, claiming that the Food and Drug Administration unlawfully authorized mifepristone more than 23 years ago.

The Biden administration vehemently refuted the accusation, highlighting the FDA’s thorough safety evaluations of the medicine and the potential for regulatory chaos if litigants and judges unfamiliar with scientific and medical reasoning were to challenge the agency’s judgment.

It is still being determined how each of the other seven justices voted because the order granting the stay was unsigned.

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