Justice Samuel Alito issued the stay, which was the opposite of what lower courts had decided, to stop more restrictions on how mifepristone could be used.
Wednesday, the Supreme Court put off deciding if the drug mifepristone can be used in abortions or not.
A lower court order that would have limited access to a controversial drug has been put off until Friday at 11:59 p.m. ET.
Many people have used mifepristone since the FDA gave it the green light in 2000. When Joe Biden was Vice President, it was easy to get abortion drugs in person or by mail.
The Biden administration and the business that makes the drug, Danco Laboratories of New York, have asked the Supreme Court to overturn lower court rulings that limit access to mifepristone while the case is being heard. They are worried that if the drug were made illegal, both the women who use it and the men who sell it would get into a lot of problems.
Doctors and pro-life groups are worried about how well the medicine will work, and the Alliance Defending Freedom is sticking up for them. They think that the FDA approved the drug for reasons other than science, so they have asked the court to step in.
Less than a year after the Supreme Court ruled against Roe v. Wade and took away government rights for abortions, pro-life groups are fighting against what they call “chemical abortions,” or abortions that use drugs. Since then, more than a dozen states have made abortion illegal or put a lot of restrictions on it, while others have made themselves safe places for people who want to get an abortion.
Trump put Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk on the U.S. District Court. Last month, he made a very controversial decision. He stopped the FDA from giving permission for mifepristone and took the case right to the Supreme Court. The court kept the 7-week cap on sales and the ban on sending, but it changed some of the other parts of the original ruling.
Pharmaceutical companies, important medical groups, past FDA officials, 250 members of Congress, cities and states run by Democrats, and left-leaning interest groups have all praised the government and Danco. Restrictions on the use of mifepristone are backed by medical groups that are against abortion, by almost 150 Republicans in Congress, and by states where Republicans are in the majority.
The combo of mifepristone and misoprostol is used to start labor and remove a dead baby from the uterus by stopping hormones that are needed to keep the child alive.
Since Mifiprex came out in 2000, it seems like more than 5 million American women have had abortions with the help of drugs. Even though the medicine is 97% good at stopping early pregnancies, about 3% of women who take it will “need surgical intervention for ongoing pregnancy, heavy bleeding, incomplete expulsion, or other reasons such as patient request.”