(DCWatchdog.com) – The Supreme Court is set to tackle a significant challenge to abortion pills brought by doctors and medical groups.
The FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case, one of two cases on abortion the Supreme Court will hear this term since overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, the justices will consider the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to roll reverse safety regulations for the chemical abortion drug mifepristone.
Doctors who sued the FDA argued that removing once-considered “essential” safety standards could lead to more women needing medical treatment, which would force OB-GYNs and emergency room doctors to address the “serious complications caused by these drugs.”
A member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) Dr. Ingrid Skop wrote:
“My moral and ethical obligation to my patients is to promote human life and health. But the FDA’s actions may force me to end the life of a human being in the womb for no medical reason.”
In 2021, the FDA allowed the distribution of mifepristone through the mail and removed the requirement for an initial in-person visit. However, in 2016, the agency removed many of the safeguards implemented when the pill was approved in 2000 which allowed it to be used through ten weeks of pregnancy rather than seven.
“A lot of people have no idea that under Joe Biden’s [FDA], abortion drugs can be sent through the mail to their kids, even if they live in a pro-life state,” State Policy Director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Katie Glenn Daniel stated.
In addition, if the Supreme Court sides with the doctors, it will mean a return to pre-2016 regulations on mifepristone while the lawsuit continues in the lower courts.
Four medical associations and four individual doctors brought the initial challenge in 2022 and alleged the FDA’s relaxed rules put women’s lives at risk and harm doctors in various ways from forcing them to finish incomplete chemical abortions in violation of their conscience, to straining hospital resources.
Only three questions are before the Supreme Court this upcoming Tuesday: whether the doctors have standing to bring the case, the FDA’s decision to roll back safety regulations after 2016 and the preliminary injunction granted by the lower courts.
According to a March Guttmacher Institute report, U.S. abortions hit 1 million in 2023, the highest level in a decade largely due to increased access to the chemical abortion pill following the FDA’s decision to lift the in-person requirement.
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