Justice delayed...
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who had earlier put on hold until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday a lower court’s decision that imposed additional restrictions on the use of mifepristone, extended the stay until Friday.
The justices are considering a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that rolled back the FDA’s actions since 2016 — allowing patients to get mifepristone through the mail, authorizing prescriptions by medical professionals other than doctors and approving the drug’s use up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy, instead of seven.
The appeals court action followed U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s recent ruling in Texas to undo the FDA’s approval of mifepristone more than two decades ago. More than 5 million women have since used the drug — in combination with a second pill, misoprostol — to end their pregnancies.
The Biden administration, pharmaceutical companies and abortion rights groups called the legal challenges to mifepristone from anti-abortion groups an unprecedented attack on the expertise of the FDA, which relied on data from dozens of clinical trials when it approved the drug. They argued the lower court rulings would create confusion and uncertainty for abortion providers and have devastating consequences for the pharmaceutical industry’s ability to bring new drugs to market...
Given the composition of the extremist Republican court, and the predilections of Alito in particular, we're not sanguine about what the Court will do come Friday. In a normal country with a normal judiciary, this case would never have been allowed to proceed from the get-go.
Stay tuned.
(Image: the six Catholic Republican Justices/ CNN)
