Supreme Court Decides Abortion Pill to Remain Amid Ongoing Legal Battle

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Friday that mifepristone, an abortion pill, will be broadly accessible amid an ongoing legal battle over its regulatory approval.

Mifepristone, approved in 2000 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is part of a chemical abortion process and is generally taken with another drug called misoprostol to kill an unborn child in pregnancies up to 10 weeks. It is also sometimes used for women who have miscarriages.

Chemical abortion, also referred to as medication abortion, comprises more than half of total U.S. abortions.

In a brief order, the majority of the Supreme Court justices on Friday granted emergency requests by the Biden administration’s Justice Department and Danco Laboratories, a manufacturer of the drug. The decision puts on hold a preliminary injunction issued on April 7 by a Trump-appointed Texas federal judge, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, which had frozen the drug’s FDA approval.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissented from the decision. In a brief opinion, Alito wrote that the administration and Danco “are not entitled to a stay because they have not shown that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the interim.” No other justices commented.

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