Matt Bush, FISM News

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito temporarily blocked two lower court rulings that either banned or restricted the use of the abortion pill mifepristone, making the drug widely accessible for now.

Alito blocked the ruling of U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk which halted FDA approval of the drug, as well as the subsequent federal appeals court ruling that allowed continued access to the drug while upholding many of the restrictions of the previous ruling.

Some of the restrictions upheld by the appeals court include:

• Decreased time from gestation in which the abortion pill could be taken.
• Abortion pills could not be mailed to patients.
• Prescribers of mifepristone had to be a physician rather than just a “healthcare provider.”

Justice Alito ordered what is called an “administrative stay,” which means the order is procedural and does not offer insight into how he will judge the case nor does it offer insight into the thinking of the other eight justices. The temporary stay is in effect until 11:59 pm on Wednesday, and it orders that “any response to the application be filed on or before Tuesday, April 18, 2023, by 12 p.m.”

“It gives the court sufficient time to consider the parties’ arguments before ruling,” said Erin Hawley, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, the plaintiffs in the case. “We look forward to explaining why the FDA has not met its heavy burden to pause the parts of the district court’s decision that restore the critical safeguards for women and girls that were unlawfully removed by the FDA.”

With the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade coming less than a year ago, abortion has become one of the most hotly contested political topics in America. Republican legislators and pro-life groups across the nation are advocating for abortion bans and restrictions, while Democrats and pro-abortion groups are fighting to keep abortions as accessible as possible.

As the fight goes on across the country, access to mifepristone is one of the key components to abortion rights. Since the abortion pill was given FDA approval in 2000, it has been used to abort more than 5 million babies.

To make that number more tangible, mifepristone has been used to terminate more than 200,000 pregnancies each year and almost 600 per day since its approval. The Guttmacher Institute estimated the total number of abortions nationwide in 2020 to be 930,160. More than 502,000 of those abortions were medication abortions.

The Biden administration and other Democratic lawmakers are ready to defend the availability of mifepristone.

“For now, mifepristone remains available and approved for safe and effective use. The President and his Administration continue to stand by FDA’s evidence-based approval of mifepristone,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a written statement. “We will continue to support the FDA’s independent, expert authority to review, approve, and regulate a wide range of prescription drugs.”

On Friday, a group of more than 250 Democratic lawmakers, including every Senate Democrat except for Joe Manchin and 203 out of 213 House Democrats, filed an amicus brief requesting the Supreme Court to issue a full stop to restrictions on mifepristone.

Justice Alito is a conservative Supreme Court Justice, and the current makeup of the Supreme Court slants 6-3 in favor of conservatives. Many Republican lawmakers, Christians, and pro-life groups and advocates believe that the makeup of this Supreme Court could help to change the landscape of abortion in America. This mifepristone decision will have a big impact on the future of abortion rights in America.