Supreme Court announces it will hear abortion pill case

The Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it would issue a ruling on whether a commonly used abortion pill should be widely available. Specifically, the court said that it would review earlier decisions by various appeals courts that held the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) overstepped its authority in broadening access to mifepristone. Although U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas issued a ruling in April to outright revoke the FDA’s authorization of mifepristone, the Supreme Court halted that decision the same month.

As a result, mifepristone’s availability in the post-Dobbs v. Jackson era has remained unchanged, while lower courts have litigated the matter. President Biden’s administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene after a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit also issued a decision to curb mifepristone’s availability. Much of the movement against mifepristone comes from groups like the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, an organization of anti-abortion activists backed by the Christian right-wing lobbying group Alliance Defending Freedom, which controversially backed the case that led to Kacsmaryk’s ruling, even though legal experts pointed out they lacked direct standing for the case.

The medication in question, mifepristone, is used to stop a pregnancy from continuing to form inside of a patient. After the patient has taken it, they then follow the pill with a medication called misoprostol, which expels the fetus. Patients who induce abortions with only misoprostol are more likely to experience side effects like discomfort, cramps, vomiting, fevers and incomplete abortion.