The legal fight over access to a commonly used abortion pill is now in the hands of the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade last year. And the federal government and drug manufacturers are sounding the alarm on the devastating consequences of potentially allowing restrictions on the drug to take effect.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued an order Friday temporarily blocking lower courts’ rulings that would restrict access to mifepristone, an abortion pill approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000. (Don’t read too much into the conservative justice’s role here; he’s assigned to handle emergency litigation from the relevant appeals court in this case.)
A more definitive ruling could come Wednesday from the GOP-majority Supreme Court — Alito’s order expires at the end of Wednesday — though whatever the justices do in this emergency litigation may not be the last word.
Seeking to keep the restrictions paused while litigation continues, the Justice Department warned in a legal filing Tuesday that allowing the restrictions to go forward “would scramble the regulatory regime governing” mifepristone, which has been used by more than 5 million women since the FDA’s approval decades ago.
The Justice Department further argued in its Tuesday filing that, without a stay:
Every extant package of [brand name mifepristone made by Danco Laboratories] Mifeprex would instantly become misbranded and could not be lawfully introduced into interstate commerce. The generic version of the drug, which accounts for most of the market, would cease to be approved altogether. And before Danco could resume introduction of the drug into interstate commerce, FDA would be forced to change the drug’s labeling and other regulatory materials — including by reinstating an obsolete dosing regimen that provides for women to take more of the drug than necessary.
In its own filing Tuesday, Danco called Donald Trump-appointed Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s April 7 order, which…
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