The Supreme Court of the United States determined this Friday that theabortion pill mifepristonewill remain widely available for now for interrupt the pregnancy process.
The order temporarily halted efforts to curb the use of mifepristone by appealing a ruling by a federal judge in Texas to suspend the drug entirely and another by a court to impose significant barriers to the pill, including blocking access by mail, reportedThe New York Times.
The order came hours before the restrictions went into effect and marked the second time in a year that the Supreme Court has considered a major effort to sharply restrict access to abortion.
HeBiden administration had asked the Supreme Court to intervene after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit put on hold a number of restrictions in the Texas ruling, although it said it would allow the pill to remain on the market.
The decision temporarily put an end to weeks of uncertainty, after a Texas judge named Matthew Kacsmaryk, a conservative federal judge appointed by Trump, ordered the city of Amarillo to ban mifepristone, ruling in favor of a recently created anti-abortion group, in your complaint to the US Drug Agency (FDA).
The two justices who dissented on this occasion are Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
Judge Alito was skeptical of the FDA's claims that "regulatory chaos" would ensue if the lower court ruling took effect and accused the agency of taking advantage of the court system to pursue "a desired policy." circumventing both necessary agency procedures and judicial review."
Most likely, this will not be the last word of the magistrates. After the Fifth Circuit hears the appeal, the matter will likely return to the Supreme Court.
President Joe Biden welcomed the decision, saying the "administration will continue to defend the FDA's independent and expert authority to review, approve and regulate a broad range of prescription drugs."
The reaction of the plaintiffs - a coalition of anti-abortion groups and several doctors - was mute.
Erik Baptist, senior attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that represents the coalition, said the battle would continue.
"The FDA must be held accountable for the harm it has caused to the health of countless women and girls and to the rule of law by failing to study how dangerous the chemical abortion drug regimen is and illegally eliminating all meaningful safeguards, including allowing abortions by mail," Baptist said.
After the Supreme Court last June eliminated theconstitutional right to abortion, political and legal battles centered on pharmacological abortion, a two-drug regimen typically used in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
The first drug, mifepristone, blocks the reproductive hormone progesterone, and the second, misoprostol, taken a day or two later, causes contractions and helps the uterus expel its contents.
More than five million women have used mifepristone to terminate pregnancies in the United States, and dozens of other countries have approved the drug for use.
In November, the plaintiffs filed suit in the Amarillo division of the Texas federal court system, ensuring that the case would come before a single judge: Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, who comes from conservative Christian activism.
The coalition that brought the lawsuit, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, argued that the FDA had improperly approved the pill in 2000 and that mifepristone is unsafe.
The agency has strongly disputed those claims, pointing to studies showing that serious complications are rare and that fewer than 1% of patients require hospitalization.
This month, Judge Kacsmaryk, in a temporary ruling, declared the FDA's approval of the drug invalid and gave both sides a week to request emergency relief before the decision took effect.
Less than an hour later, a Washington state federal judge, Thomas O. Rice, appointed by President Barack Obama, issued a contradictory ruling in another mifepristone lawsuit, blocking the FDA from limiting the pill's availability in 17 states. and in the District of Columbia, which were parties to that lawsuit.
The conflicting rulings meant the matter was almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court.
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