World News | Supreme Court Holds FDA Abortion Pill Rule For Now

WASHINGTON, April 15 (AP) — The Supreme Court said Friday it is keeping federal rules on the use of abortion drugs in place for now while it needs time to more fully consider issues raised in court challenges.

In an order signed by Judge Samuel Alito, the court gave the two sides until Tuesday to weigh in on whether a lower court ruling limiting Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug mifepristone should take effect while the case is pending in federal court. The order indicated that the court would decide the issue later on Wednesday.

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At that point, the justices were only asked to determine which parts of an April 7 ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas, as amended by Wednesday’s appeal decision, would stand while the case continues.

The Biden administration and New York-based pill maker Danco Laboratories asked the judge to intervene.

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The type of order the court issued Friday is an administrative stay, which usually doesn’t indicate what action the justices will take.

On Friday, the Biden administration and a drug maker asked the Supreme Court to protect abortion drugs from lower court rulings while the legal battle continues.

Both the Justice Department and Danco Laboratories have warned that if the high court does not block an appeals court ruling in a Texas case that tightened the rules that the FDA-regulated drug, mifepristone, can be prescribed and dispensed.

The new restrictions will take effect Saturday unless the court acts before then.

“This application involves an unprecedented lower court order that revokes the FDA’s scientific judgment and sparks regulatory confusion by suspending the existing conditions of use for FDA-approved mifepristone,” said Deputy Attorney General Elizabeth Pray, lead Supreme Court counsel in the Biden administration. Logar wrote Friday, less than two days after the appeals ruling.

Lawyers for anti-abortion doctors and medical groups suing mifepristone said the judge should deny the drugmaker and the government’s request and allow the changes ordered by the appeals court to take effect.

The Supreme Court battle over mifepristone comes less than a year after conservative judges overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to ban abortion outright.

The justices were asked to issue an interim order to uphold the FDA’s rule on mifepristone. Such an order would give them time to consider both sides’ arguments more fully without the pressure of a deadline.

The Biden administration and New York-based Danko also want a longer-lasting order that would keep current rules in place as long as the legal battle over mifepristone continues. As a fallback, they asked the court to take up the issue, hear arguments and decide by early summer on a legal challenge to mifepristone brought last year by anti-abortion doctors and medical groups.

Courts have rarely granted a full review of a case so quickly before at least one appeals court has thoroughly examined the legal issues involved.

A ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit late Wednesday will ban mailing or prescribing pills, the most common method of abortion, without an in-person visit to a doctor. It would also revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone for use after the seventh week of pregnancy. The FDA says it’s safe for 10 weeks.

Still, the appeals court didn’t completely revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, and the debate over it continues. The Fifth Circuit narrowed an April 7 ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in a far-reaching and almost unprecedented order that would prevent the FDA from approving the pill. He gave the government a week to appeal.

“To the government’s knowledge, this is the first time any court has struck down FDA’s conditions on a drug’s approval based on disagreeing with FDA’s judgment about safety—let alone those conditions that have been in effect for years,” Prelogar wrote.

Erin Hawley, an attorney for the challengers, said in a statement that the FDA put politics ahead of health concerns in the medical abortion action.

“The Fifth Circuit rightly asked the agency to prioritize women’s health by restoring key safeguards, and we will urge the Supreme Court to maintain that accountability,” said Hawley, a senior attorney with the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Liberty. Also advocated overturning Roe v. Wade.

Mifepristone was approved by the FDA more than two decades ago and is used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol.

Adding to the uncertainty, another federal judge in Washington on Thursday clarified his own order from last week, making it clear that the FDA will not do anything that might prevent the availability of mifepristone in the 17 Democratic-led states. Continue listing.

It was unclear how the FDA complied with court orders in both cases, a situation that Prelogar said Friday was untenable. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)