Lower courts previously ruled the government improperly rolled back safety-related restrictions on the drug.
The Supreme Court unanimously rejected a challenge on June 13 that was brought by a doctors’ group against the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) loosening of regulations of the abortion pill mifepristone, handing a win to the agency.
The court held that those challenging the status of the pill lacked legal standing to do so.
The decision came two years after the court’s landmark 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the regulation of abortion to the states.
The 9–0 opinion was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion.
Medication abortions are reportedly lawful in 36 states and the District of Columbia.
A medication abortion generally involves the use of mifepristone, which blocks progesterone, a hormone, and misoprostol, which induces contractions. Misoprostol, which is widely available because it has many medical uses, was not an issue in the current litigation. Also known as mifeprex and RU-486, mifepristone is made by Danco Laboratories.
The 9–0 opinion was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion.
Medication abortions are reportedly lawful in 36 states and the District of Columbia.
A medication abortion generally involves the use of mifepristone, which blocks progesterone, a hormone, and misoprostol, which induces contractions. Misoprostol, which is widely available because it has many medical uses, was not an issue in the current litigation. Also known as mifeprex and RU-486, mifepristone is made by Danco Laboratories.
The case is actually two appeals that the court consolidated—Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) and Danco Laboratories LLC v. AHM.
The Supreme Court case came after Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, an appointee of President Donald Trump, held in April 2023 that the FDA was wrong to approve mifepristone for public use in 2000. He said the FDA was under political pressure to get the pill on the market and then, after that, had deliberately dragged out judicial review of the drug for years.
