Supreme Court Upholds Access to Abortion Medication Mifepristone

The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously against challenges to the FDA's approval process for the abortion drug mifepristone, preserving access to the medication in the United States.

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a unanimous decision in favor of the Biden administration and abortion rights supporters, ruling that challengers to the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) regulations on mifepristone lacked standing to sue the government. The case was remanded back to the Fifth Circuit consistent with the Court's opinion.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion that the plaintiffs, a group of health care associations, failed to demonstrate that the FDA's relaxed regulatory requirements likely would cause them to suffer an injury in fact. He emphasized that their "sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to elective abortion and to FDA’s relaxed regulation of mifepristone" alone did not establish a justiciable case or controversy under Article III of the Constitution.

Erin Hawley, counsel for the civil rights firm Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued the case against the FDA, expressed disappointment over the ruling. She claimed that the FDA recklessly leaves women and girls to take abortion drugs without ongoing, in-person care of a doctor.

However, the Supreme Court found that the plaintiffs could not prove that the FDA's actions would have caused them injury. Kavanaugh suggested that they could present their concerns to the President and FDA in the regulatory process, to Congress and the President in the legislative process, or express their views to fellow citizens through political and electoral processes.

The ruling is a setback for opponents of abortion rights, who have sought to restrict access to mifepristone. Nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. in 2023 relied on mifepristone, according to the Guttmacher Institute research group.

Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, raised concerns about "associational standing" in the case, arguing that the Alliance sought to have standing based on injuries to doctors who were members of its member associations.

Attorney General Merrick Garland praised the unanimous ruling, emphasizing the importance of protecting and advancing reproductive freedoms under federal law. He stated that the Department of Justice will continue to work tirelessly in this regard.

The decision comes in the wake of the Supreme Court's landmark 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the regulation of abortion to the states. Since then, 14 states have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions, and two others have banned abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

The Supreme Court's ruling on mifepristone ensures that Americans will continue to have full access to the abortion medication, regardless of restrictions on abortion in their respective states.