Twenty months after the Supreme Court ruled to return abortion policy to the states, the issue will be before the justices again on Tuesday, when they weigh a case that threatens to curtail access to a commonly used drug taken in a medication abortion.
The dispute involves a series of actions that the Food and Drug Administration took beginning in 2016 that made the pill, mifepristone, easier to obtain. A group of medical associations that oppose abortion rights have argued the agency acted unlawfully when it relaxed the rules surrounding mifepristone’s use.
The justices will first have to consider a procedural issue — whether the doctors and their associations have legal standing to challenge the FDA’s efforts in federal court — before deciding whether the FDA’s changes complied with the law.
Hanging in the balance is the availability of the pill nationwide. States that restrict abortion access and those that protect it would all be impacted by a decision that rolls back the FDA’s recent moves.
“We know that reversing the changes made in 2016 and 2021 to access mifepristone will make reproductive care more resource-intensive and less safe,” said Marsha Henderson, former FDA associate commissioner for women’s health, during a call with reporters. “It will also undermine FDA’s congressionally granted authority and confuse patients.
