The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will consider whether to restrict access to a widely used abortion drug — even in states where the procedure is still allowed.
The case concerns the drug mifepristone that — when coupled with another drug — is one of the most common abortion methods in the United States.
The decision means the conservative-leaning court will again wade into the abortion debate after overturning Roe v. Wade last year, altering the landscape of abortion rights nationwide and triggering more than half the states to outlaw or severely restrict the procedure.
The new case could be decided by July, inserting the Supreme Court into the middle of the presidential election, where abortion access is once again a key issue.
For now, mifepristone remains available and not subject to restrictions the lower courts have said should be imposed on its use. The high court determined in April that access to the drug would remain unchanged until the appeals process finishes.
The Biden administration and a manufacturer of the drug are asking the justices to reverse a federal appeals court decision that, if allowed to go into effect, would restrict access to the drug. At the same time, groups and doctors that oppose abortion want the justices to go even further than a conservative federal appeals court did and hold that the initial 2000 approval of the drug was also unlawful.
Central to the dispute is the scope of the US Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate mifepristone, a drug that the medical community has deemed safe and effective. It has been used by millions of women across the country in the more than two decades it’s been on the market.
The drug was initially approved by the FDA in 2000, but in 2016, 2019 and 2021, the FDA put in place modifications that would make the drug more easily…
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