Washington, D.C. — Today, a group of anti-abortion activists and organizations presented arguments before the Supreme Court in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and Danco v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The plaintiffs in this case are challenging the FDA’s expansion of the drug which would affect its delivery and distribution, as well as barring telemedicine prescriptions and shipments by mail. A safe, effective medication, mifepristone has been FDA-approved for 24 years and is one of two medicines most commonly used in medication abortion in the United States. Last year, Republican-appointed judges in Texas and on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of plaintiffs, issuing separate orders severely restricting access to mifepristone, but the Supreme Court stayed this decision.
This case’s potential repercussions go far beyond abortion care — it opens the door for the politically-motivated removal of other safe and effective drugs from the market — throwing the entire U.S. drug approval process into chaos. The consequences of this ruling would be most detrimental for women of color, people living in rural areas, and lower-income Americans who face the steepest barriers to accessing care. FDA’s approval of mifepristone remains unchanged at the moment, but the Supreme Court will issue a ruling on the case by early July. Read Protect Our Care’s fact sheet on Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA.
In response, Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach issued the following statement:
“The plaintiffs’ arguments undermine decades of research and the FDA’s scientific judgment that mifepristone is safe and effective and could throw our entire drug approval process into chaos. This is a deliberate attack by MAGA extremists to deny people the freedom to make their own reproductive health decisions. The justices were right today to strongly question the plaintiffs’ standing and arguments. Patients and families deserve access to medication they need without unnecessary political and judicial interference. If the courts ultimately side with the plaintiffs, it will be an unprecedented situation, opening the door for more fringe extremist groups with a political agenda to challenge any medication they disagree with.”