U.S. Supreme Court Shocks The Nation With Unanimous 9-0 Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously dismissed a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s authority over an abortion-related drug.
In a 9-0 decision, the justices ruled that the challengers did not have the standing to contest the FDA’s approval process for the abortion drug mifepristone. This ruling is considered a win for the Biden administration and abortion rights advocates, according to Fox News.
“Under Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff’s desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue. Nor do the plaintiffs’ other standing theories suffice,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the unanimous opinion.
“The plaintiffs have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to elective abortion and to FDA’s relaxed regulation of mifepristone,” he continued. “But under Article III of the Constitution, those kinds of objections alone do not establish a justiciable case or controversy in federal court.”
The justices sent the case back to the Fifth Circuit, aligning with the Court’s opinion.
This case originated from lawsuits by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a group of healthcare associations, which argued that the drug has a high complication rate.
Erin Hawley, representing the Alliance Defending Freedom in the case against the FDA, expressed disappointment, stating, “We are disappointed that the Supreme Court did not reach the merits of the FDA’s lawless removal of commonsense safety standards for abortion drugs.”
She added: “Nothing in today’s decision changes the fact that the FDA’s own label says that roughly one in 25 women who take chemical abortion drugs will end up in the emergency room — a dangerous reality the doctors and medical associations we represent in this case know all too well. The FDA recklessly leaves women and girls to take these high-risk drugs all alone in their homes or dorm, without requiring the ongoing, in-person care of a doctor.”
Despite their disappointment, she vowed to continue advocating for women and to work towards restoring “commonsense safeguards for abortion drugs — like an initial office visit to screen for ectopic pregnancies,” noting that three states are prepared to hold the FDA accountable for risking the health and safety of women and girls nationwide.
The justices concluded that the group could not demonstrate that the FDA’s relaxed regulations were causing harm, thus removing their standing to sue.
“Here, the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that FDA’s relaxed regulatory requirements likely would cause them to suffer an injury in fact. For that reason, the federal courts are the wrong forum for addressing the plaintiffs’ concerns about FDA’s actions,” Kavanaugh explained.
He suggested that the plaintiffs should present their concerns to the President and FDA through the regulatory process, or to Congress through the legislative process. Additionally, they can express their views about abortion and mifepristone to their fellow citizens through political and electoral channels.
In March, the justices heard about 90 minutes of arguments concerning federal regulations since 2016 that increased access to mifepristone, including by mail.
Fox News also reported that the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right to an abortion, leaving the matter to be decided by the states.
In response, 14 states have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions, and two others have banned it once a fetal heartbeat is detected, around six weeks of gestation.
Mifepristone, combined with misoprostol, forms the two-drug regimen known as medication abortion or the “abortion pill.”