Alito’s original April 14 order blocks the April 7 ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who suspended the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the pill even though mifepristone has been widely available since 2000. Kacsmaryk sided with anti-abortion groups that filed the Texas lawsuit, ruling that the FDA didn’t adequately review scientific evidence and safety risks when it approved the drug. The White House and Department of Justice vowed to fight the ruling. Indeed, in a statement President Biden said if the lower court’s ruling is to stand, then there will be “virtually no prescription, approved by the FDA, that would be safe from these kinds of political, ideological attacks.”
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The Supreme Court had given both sides until noon Tuesday to respond over whether a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that limited the distribution and access to the drug should take effect while the lawsuit winds its way through the courts. On Wednesday, Alito temporarily extended the administrative stay to Friday, April 21 to give justices more time to consider the issue, CNN reported.
Millions of women have used the drug with low rates of complications for years. The American Medical Association (AMA) called the ruling outrageous. Mifepristone is extremely safe and effective and is backed by hundreds of studies, wrote AMA President Jack Resneck Jr., M.D. The court ruling suspending its use “favors ideology and pseudoscience over facts, harms patients, interferes with the patient-physician relationship and jeopardizes public health nationwide.”
Resneck said that data shows an association between restricted access to safe and legal abortion and higher rates of maternal morbidity and mortality, with already vulnerable populations experiencing the greatest burden. “Reduced access to mifepristone will almost certainly exacerbate the maternal mortality crisis in places that do not have access to this medication, and for historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups and those who have been economically and socially marginalized," he said.