The Supreme Court Abortion Pill Case Is Based on Imaginary Patients and Shoddy Science

► For more, visit Mother Jones

On Tuesday, another ADF lawsuit will be heard at the Supreme Court. And once again, the case rests on a hypothetical: A member of a small anti-abortion doctors’ coalition might one day have to care for a patient suffering a rare and severe complication from an FDA-approved abortion pill that the American Medical Association considers as safe as Tylenol. Perhaps, the case speculates, that doctor might be forced to administer that patient an emergency abortion, violating their anti-abortion convictions.

This lawsuit—known as FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine—aims to limit the availability of mifepristone, the first pill in the two-drug regimen commonly used in medication abortions. ADF, on behalf of the anti-abortion doctors, accuses the FDA of “betraying women and girls” when it approved mifepristone 23 years ago by overlooking potentially harmful side effects and by later making it easier to get.

The case has the potential to produce the most consequential abortion ruling since 2022, when, in its Dobbs decision, the court ended the constitutional right to an abortion by upholding a Mississippi law that had been written by ADF. Since that decision, 14 states have made it illegal to provide abortion in virtually all cases, and seven more have restricted abortion to earlier in pregnancy.

ow, with Tuesday’s case, the Supreme Court could broadly limit access to mifepristone—even in blue states that protect people’s right to end their pregnancy.

#SCOTUS #Mifepristone #ReproductiveRights

--

For more awardwinning independent reporting, visit Mother Jones