Supreme Court hears arguments on medical abortion restrictions

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday over the use of the drug mifepristone, which was used in nearly two-thirds of abortions in the country last year.

It is the court’s first abortion case since it struck down the constitutional right to abortion two years ago and has since been banned or restricted in many Republican-led states.

A decision on whether to restrict access to the drug, expected in early summer, could have broad implications for the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory authority over drug safety. Possible restrictions include stopping mailing the drug, limiting telemedicine prescribing and reducing the number of weeks it can be used after pregnancy from 10 to seven weeks.

The Biden administration and Danco Laboratories of New York, which makes mifepristone, have certified that the drug is one of the safest drugs approved by the FDA.

Since 2000, more than 6 million people have used mifepristone. Health care providers are concerned that lack of or difficulty in obtaining mifepristone may lead to reliance solely on misoprostol, another drug used as part of medical abortion that is less effective on its own in terminating pregnancy.

However, anti-abortion medical professionals and organizations argue that the FDA’s past relaxations of restrictions on access to the drug are unreasonable and pose a risk to women’s health.

The Biden administration and pharmaceutical companies have warned that a ruling restricting access to mifepristone could weaken the FDA’s drug approval protocols more broadly by encouraging judicial review of the agency’s scientific evaluations.

The White House has been openly pro-life.

The government and Danko also argued that the challengers lacked legal standing to sue; if the Supreme Court agreed, the case would essentially be dismissed, invalidating the appealed ruling.

The court has another abortion case pending, which involves whether hospitals must include abortions as emergency treatments under federal law, even in states that ban them.

Information for this report was provided in part by The Associated Press and Reuters.