CV NEWS FEED // The Supreme Court Wednesday elected to hear a case that will determine the availability of the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone.
The case, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, was appealed to the Court by the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer, Danco Laboratories.
The move followed an August Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that placed several restrictions on mifepristone, including ending mail orders of the abortion pill.
“The Biden administration and the maker of the drug mifepristone are asking the high court to reverse [the 5th Circuit’s] appellate ruling that would cut off access to the drug through the mail and impose other restrictions, even in states where abortion remains legal,” FOX News reported Wednesday:
The restrictions include shortening from the current 10 weeks to seven weeks the time during which mifepristone can be used in pregnancy. The nine justices rejected a separate appeal from abortion opponents who challenged the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone as safe and effective in 2000.
>> HOW THE CLINTONS STRONGARMED THE FDA TO APPROVE THE ABORTION PILL <<
“The case will be argued in the spring, with a decision likely by late June, in the middle of the 2024 presidential and congressional campaigns,” added FOX.
According to SCOTUSblog, the case seeks to determine “whether the Supreme Court should stay the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas’s order blocking the [FDA’s] approval of mifepristone.”
As CatholicVote reported earlier this year:
Federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas on Friday, April 7 stayed the Federal Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the abortion pill mifepristone – a drug used in about half of all abortions. That same day, another federal judge ruled that officials must allow prescriptions for the drug to continue in certain states.
The contradictory rulings have set the stage for ongoing court battles that may culminate in a Supreme Court case to decide the matter.
On April 21, the Supreme Court “issued a temporary ruling directing full access to the abortion drug mifepristone,” CatholicVote reported.
While the 5th Circuit restricted the drug’s access months later, it upheld the FDA’s approval of the drug, contradicting Kacsmaryk’s order.
Judge James Ho dissented, arguing that the court on which he sits should have revoked the approval.
“I don’t understand this theme — the FDA can do no wrong,” he said in a hearing days before the 5th Circuit’s ruling. “That is basically the narrative you all are putting forth — nobody should ever question the FDA.”
>> FEDERAL COURT ENDS MAIL ORDER OF ABORTION DRUG <<
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is a pro-life and pro-religious freedom legal group that is representing the plaintiffs in the case. ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley explained this week: “Every court so far has agreed that the FDA acted unlawfully in removing common-sense safeguards for women and authorizing dangerous mail-order abortions.”
“We urge the Supreme Court to do the same,” Hawley continued:
The FDA has harmed the health of women and undermined the rule of law by illegally removing every meaningful safeguard from the chemical abortion drug regimen.
Like any federal agency, the FDA must rationally explain its decisions. Yet its removal of common-sense safeguards—like a doctor’s visit before women are prescribed chemical abortion drugs—does not reflect scientific judgment but rather a politically driven decision to push a dangerous drug regimen.
Hawley is married to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-MO.
The ADF’s description of the pending case states:
The FDA never studied the safety of the drugs under the labeled conditions of use, ignored the potential impacts of the hormone-blocking regimen on the developing bodies of adolescent girls, disregarded the substantial evidence that chemical abortion drugs cause more complications than surgical abortions, and eliminated necessary safeguards for pregnant girls and women who undergo this dangerous drug regimen.
