The Supreme Court on Friday preserved women’s access to a drug used in the most common method of abortion, rejecting lower-court restrictions while a lawsuit continues.
The justices granted emergency requests from the Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, maker of the drug mifepristone. They are appealing a lower court ruling that would roll back Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone.
The drug has been approved for use in the US since 2000 and more than 5 million people have used it. Mifepristone is used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol, in more than half of all abortions in the US.
Biden in response issued a statement calling on voters to take the issue of abortion access to the polls.”The stakes could not be higher for women across America,” he wrote, promising to fight “politically driven attacks on women’s health”.
“But, let’s be clear, the American people must continue to use their vote as their voice, and elect a Congress who will pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v Wade,” Biden added, citing a landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that protected the constitutional right to abortion for nearly half a century.
In June 2022, that precedent was overturned under the court’s current six-to-three conservative majority.Many Democrats and abortion advocates likewise hailed Friday’s decision, though they were quick to note it was a temporary stopgap while the court case over mifepristone’s availability continued, Al Jazeera reported.
“This fight is not over,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on Twitter. “Extremist Republican politicians continue to chip away at women’s rights to make their own health care decisions across the nation.”
Friday’s Supreme Court decision is likely to leave mifepristone access unchanged at least until next year, as appeals continue to weigh its federal approval, according to Al Jazeera.