The future of a widely used medication to end pregnancies, the health care options of American women and even the viability of US regulatory approvals for routine drugs are all in question as the Supreme Court deliberates on a critical abortion case ahead of a deadline extended to Friday.
Justice Samuel Alito gave the court more time Wednesday, extending a temporary hold on an order by a Texas judge, which would block approval of the mifepristone, and on a subsequent appeals court ruling, which would let the government’s approval of the drug stand but agreed access could be limited. It’s the most important abortion case since the high court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. The extension, until 11:59 p.m. ET Friday, means the drug remains available. But the possibility of health care chaos will not ease over the next 48 hours.
The precarious two-day period is a study in microcosm of the deep uncertainty about the continued availability of abortion in some states nearly a year after the court’s conservative majority overturned the constitutional right to the procedure. It reflects the way that the post-Roe anti-abortion movement has escalated its effort to eradicate abortion rights everywhere. The current case also shows that President Joe Biden’s administration is ready to intervene aggressively in the courts to try to protect abortion rights.
The fallout from the Texas ruling, which blocked Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug, is also thrusting abortion back into the Washington political storm in a way that has been a liability for the Republican Party with more moderate and swing voters – an ironic consequence of conservatives’ decadeslong campaign against Roe.
There’s another irony to this all-consuming legal collision. Alito wrote in his majority opinion overturning Roe last summer that the 1973 decision was wrong because justices had…
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