Biden Admin Goes All In For Abortion Push

On Tuesday, the Biden administration pleaded with the Supreme Court to protect the availability of an abortion pill, stating that women seeking medical abortions would suffer grave harm if its availability were to be restricted.

In briefs submitted to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department and mifepristone manufacturer Danco Laboratories argued that the court should overturn a lower court decision that would undo the FDA’s efforts since 2016 to make the pill easier to maintain.

From 2016 until 2021, the Biden administration and Danco maintained that the FDA’s activities were within the law. Some modifications include making it possible to take mifepristone up to ten weeks into a pregnancy instead of seven, cutting the number of in-person visits needed from three to one, and increasing the number of doctors and nurses who can prescribe and administer the medicine. The Food and Drug Administration has now announced that mifepristone can be sent to patients via regular mail.

According to Prelogar, the FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 after concluding that the medication was “safe and effective.” The agency then relaxed regulations on the pill’s usage, citing “an exhaustive review of a record including dozens of scientific studies and decades of safe use of mifepristone by millions of women in the United States and around the world” as evidence.

A coalition of anti-abortion rights medical groups and physicians have petitioned the Supreme Court to hear their case during this term, but no dates have been assigned for the hearings. In November 2022, the challengers filed a lawsuit against the FDA, claiming that the agency had neglected to sufficiently evaluate the safety of mifepristone when it approved the medicine over 20 years ago and when it made subsequent adjustments to the drug’s usage.

Research shows that mifepristone has few significant side effects, and over 5 million women have used the medicine to stop their pregnancies, according to the Biden administration.

A judge in a federal district court stopped the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone. However, in August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit limited the ruling after finding that the medical groups’ challenge to the drug’s approval was probably too late. However, the three-judge bench said that the FDA probably broke the law when it relaxed regulations for getting mifepristone after 2016.

The medicine will remain available until the Supreme Court gives a verdict, anticipated by the end of June.