US supreme court delays decision on abortion pill restrictions until Friday

The brief order was the latest development in a legal showdown initiated by abortion opponents seeking to revoke a 23-year-old Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the pill.

Earlier this month, Matthew Kacsmaryk, a federal judge in Texas, declared that the FDA improperly approved the drug in 2000, effectively saying it should be pulled from the market even where abortion remains legal.

The Biden administration appealed to a federal court, where a divided three-judge panel said mifepristone could remain available but imposed several barriers to how the drug is accessed and administered.

Following the appellate ruling, the justice department sought emergency relief from the supreme court, asking the justices to block a lower court ruling that would have sharply curtailed access to the pill by reversing a series of regulatory actions on mifepristone that the FDA loosened, beginning in 2016.

If the justices allow the appeals court ruling to stand, the Biden administration has argued, it would dramatically limit the accessibility of mifepristone for both women seeking it and providers dispensing it, causing chaos.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, representing a coalition of anti-abortion doctors and medical groups which brought the case, has urged the court to let the restrictions take effect immediately.

Complicating the question, a federal judge in Washington state, Thomas Rice, issued a contradictory ruling in a separate lawsuit brought by Democratic attorneys general in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The order, which Rice reaffirmed after the appeals ruling in the Texas case, blocked the FDA from limiting the availability of mifepristone in those states.

The company says it supplies around two-thirds of the pills used for medication abortions in the US.

Since the fall of Roe v Wade, which safeguarded the right to abortion, more than a dozen states have banned or severely restricted abortion. But several states have moved to protect abortion rights, frustrating those who have pushed for a national ban.

As access to abortion becomes increasingly more difficult, attention has turned to medication abortion. Mifepristone is the first pill in a two-drug regimen to terminate pregnancies, a method that now accounts for more than half of the abortions in the US, surpassing surgical procedures.

Decades of research have concluded that mifepristone and misoprostol, the abortion pills widely used in the US, are safe and effective.

The abortion opponents brought their case in Amarillo, Texas, a division with only one federal district judge: Kacsmaryk, who previously worked for First Liberty Institute, a conservative Christian legal activist group.

Reproductive rights activists say a decision by the supreme court not to block restrictions while the appeals process moves forward would have dangerous and far-reaching consequences for women, including those who live in states where abortion rights are protected.