Key Points
- The ruling comes two years after the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v Wade.
- The mifepristone pill is used in more than 60 per cent of abortion cases in the US.
- The court ruled that the plaintiffs had no legal standing to pursue the case.
The United States Supreme Court has overturned a decision made by the lower court and rejected an effort to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone.
Mifepristone is used in more than 60 per cent of abortion cases across the country.
The plaintiffs, a collection of anti-abortion groups and doctors known as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, had tried to persuade the Supreme Court to roll back a series of steps taken by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that eased how the drug could be prescribed and distributed.
The court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked the necessary legal standing to pursue the case, which required that they show they had been harmed in a way that could be traced to the FDA.
Conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that even though the plaintiffs do not prescribe or use mifepristone, they want the FDA to make it harder for other doctors to prescribe it and women to receive it.
“Under Article Three of the Constitution, a plaintiff’s desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Battle for abortion rights continues in the US
Abortion rights advocates and Democrats expressed relief at the decision, but also concern that the Supreme Court had entertained the case in the first place. The case represented another front in the intensifying battle over abortion rights in the US.
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling, ending the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion and leading certain states to ban it outright.
US President Joe Biden, who is seeking a second term in office in the upcoming US presidential election, is an outspoken advocate for abortion rights and he and his fellow Democrats have sought to make abortion rights a central theme against Republicans ahead of the election.