WORLD: US SUPREME COURT REJECTS BID TO RESTRICT ABORTION PILL
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On Thursday, the US Supreme Court denied a request to limit the use of an abortion medication that is often used to end pregnancies in the country.
In a unanimous ruling, the court determined that the doctors and anti-abortion organizations contesting the drug mifepristone did not have the legal authority to file the lawsuit.
The Democratic administration of President Joe Biden had urged the court to continue access to drug administration, which was approved by the Food and medicine Administration (FDA) in 2000, because abortion rights are one of the major issues in the November election. The Republican Party, led by his opponent Donald Trump, is largely in favor of restricting access to abortion.
The mifepristone case was the first significant abortion case heard by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court since it overturned the previously long-held constitutional right to abortion two years ago.
“We recognize that many citizens, including the plaintiff doctors here, have sincere concerns about and objections to others using mifepristone and obtaining abortions,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the 9-0 opinion.
“But citizens and doctors do not have standing to sue simply because others are allowed to engage in certain activities,” Kavanaugh said. “The plaintiffs lack standing to challenge FDA’s actions.”
The conservative majority ruled that the plaintiffs could raise their issues through regulatory procedures, or “political and electoral processes,” and that the federal courts were “the wrong forum for addressing the plaintiffs’ concerns about the FDA’s actions.”
The pill is dangerous, and anti-abortion doctors are being forced to violate their consciences by intervening with patients who experience difficulties after using it, according to proponents of restricting access to it statewide.
A verdict by a conservative US district court judge in Texas last year would have outlawed mifepristone. The judge was chosen under the Trump administration.
Although the statute of limitations for contesting the FDA’s clearance had passed, an appeals court reversed the whole ban while imposing restrictions on the medication’s availability.
The appeals court banned mail delivery of mifepristone, lowered its use window from 10 weeks to seven weeks of pregnancy, and mandated that a doctor prescribe and administer the medication.
These limitations are lifted by the Supreme Court’s decision.
The Guttmacher Institute reports that medication abortions made up 63% of all abortions performed in the nation in 2020, an increase from 53% in the previous year.
Since the Supreme Court overturned the historic Roe v. Wade decision in June 2022, which had established the constitutional right to an abortion for fifty years, almost twenty states have outlawed or severely restricted access to abortion.
According to polls, the majority of Americans still favor safe abortion access, despite efforts by conservative organizations to restrict or outlaw the practice.
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