{"id":378859,"date":"2023-12-13T12:12:36","date_gmt":"2023-12-13T17:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/supreme-court-will-rule-on-availability-of-abortion-pill-drugs-com-mednews\/"},"modified":"2023-12-13T16:54:50","modified_gmt":"2023-12-13T21:54:50","slug":"supreme-court-will-rule-on-availability-of-abortion-pill-drugs-com-mednews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/supreme-court-will-rule-on-availability-of-abortion-pill-drugs-com-mednews\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Will Rule on Availability of Abortion Pill – Drugs.com MedNews","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

Medically reviewed<\/a> by Drugs.com.<\/span><\/p>\n

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter<\/p>\n

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 13, 2023 — The Supreme Court will review the ability of American women to easily access a commonly used abortion pill, the court announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Mifepristone<\/a> has become central to the response by health care professionals and reproductive rights advocates to last year\u2019s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.<\/p>\n

The pill can be transported across state and national borders, allowing women to skirt efforts to ban or severely restrict abortion in some states.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone more than two decades ago, and it is currently used in more than half of all pregnancy terminations in the United States, the New York Times<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

Policies issued in recent years by the FDA have allowed the pills to be prescribed via telehealth, mailed to patients and handed out at pharmacies.<\/p>\n

Before that, the pill had to be prescribed by a doctor and picked up in person. Patients also had to visit a doctor three times during the medication abortion process, the Times<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

Anti-abortion rights activists originally sued to block FDA approval of mifepristone entirely, but in August the conservative U.S. Fifth District Court of Appeals overturned only the more recent policies expanding access.<\/p>\n

The appeals court ruled that the FDA did not follow proper procedures when it loosened regulations for obtaining the pill, the Times<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration and mifepristone manufacturer Danco Laboratories appealed the Fifth District\u2019s decision to the Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear arguments regarding those policies, its order<\/a> states.<\/p>\n

The high court will not review the FDA\u2019s original approval of the drug.<\/p>\n

In its appeal<\/a>, lawyers from the Justice Department said allowing the Fifth District decision to stand \u201cwould threaten to severely disrupt the pharmaceutical industry and prevent F.D.A. from fulfilling its statutory responsibilities according to its scientific judgment,\u201d the Times<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

In a brief<\/a>, the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom called the appeals court\u2019s ruling a \u201cmodest decision\u201d that \u201cmerely restores the common-sense safeguards under which millions of women have taken chemical abortion drugs,\u201d the Times<\/em> said.<\/p>\n

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Sources<\/h2>\n