Supreme Court temporarily halts abortion pill restrictions

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday temporarily suspended orders from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that would have restricted the nationwide sale and distribution of the abortion medication mifepristone.

The move by conservative Justice Samuel Alito will give the High Court until Wednesday April 19 to decide whether those restrictions will be kept in place pending the outcome of litigation over the case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is now on appeal before the 5th Circuit.

Last week, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a stay of the

FDA’s approval of mifepristone 23 years ago, effectively barring its sale and distribution nationwide.

On appeal, the 5th Circuit ruled late Wednesday night that access to the drug would be restricted, though not banned entirely, pending the outcome of the case.

But for the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, which effectively preserves the status quo until next Wednesday, access to mifepristone would have required multiple doctors visits while telehealth consultations and mail order prescriptions would have been excluded.

Medication abortions account for more than half of all abortions performed each year in the United States. Mifepristone was first approved by the FDA in 2000, and the drug has since been proven safe and effective over more than two decades.

The Biden-Harris administration joined many legal observers in objecting to Kacsmaryk’s ruling, which these stakeholders considered an unlawful circumvention of the FDA’s Congressionally ordained power to evaluate the safety and efficacy of medications.

Kacsmaryk does not have formal training in science or medicine. Shortly after his ruling, 200 pharmaceutical industry executives issued an open letter arguing the move had cast such uncertainty around the drug approvals process that pipelines for new drug discovery would be threatened.

CHRISTOPHER KANE