The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that would decide the fate of the “abortion pill.”
It will be the biggest reproductive rights case that the court’s conservative supermajority has seen since it overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
At stake is access to a drug called mifepristone, which, along with misoprostol, comprises one-half of a two-pill prescription jointly referred to as “the abortion pill.” Together, they account for more than half of all the abortions in the United States, according to a 2022 report by the Guttmacher Institute.
In April, a Trump-appointed judge in a lower court halted access to the drug. Four months later, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the plaintiffs, the right-wing Christian organization Alliance Defending Freedom, ruling that while the pill was safe for market, the Food and Drug Administration had overstepped its role by taking several steps that expanded access to the drug in 2016. That included allowing women to access it 10 weeks into pregnancy instead of seven, lowering the standard dosage, and allowing the prescription to be accessed via telemedicine.
Until now, none of those changes have been felt thanks to a Supreme Court stay on the case. But now that the nation’s highest court has decided to review it, that could change.
And the Christian legal group leading the charge against mifepristone would like to see more than just a few nicks to its access—instead, it’s aiming for a complete ban that questions the FDA’s initial approval of the drug in 2000, according to court filings.
A decision in the case is expected by summer.
