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States — The US Supreme Court on Friday temporarily preserved access to a widely-used abortion pill, in an 11th-hour ruling preventing lower court restrictions on the drug from coming into force.
The nation’s highest court issued an “administrative stay” freezing the rulings until Wednesday to allow for parties in the case to submit their arguments, in the latest salvo in America’s battle over reproductive rights.
The stay came after the Justice Department filed an emergency appeal asking the Supreme Court to block the lower court rulings that would have banned or limited use of the drug mifepristone from 1:00 am Eastern Time on Saturday.
The order gives the Supreme Court time to decide what to do next in the case.
Signed by Justice Samuel Alito, architect of last year’s blockbuster opinion that overturned the constitutional US right to an abortion, the stay asked for parties to submit their briefs by Tuesday.
In its emergency Supreme Court filing, the Justice Department had argued that the lower court orders “will upend the status quo and scramble the complex regulatory regime governing mifepristone.”
“That disruptive result would profoundly harm women, the nation’s healthcare system, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), and the public interest,” it said.
The escalating legal battle kicked off last week when a conservative federal judge in Texas ordered a nationwide ban on mifepristone, in response to a lawsuit by an anti-abortion coalition challenging the FDA’s approval of the drug in 2000.
