A federal appeals court has upheld part of a Texas judge’s decision. The Justice Department says it will ask the Supreme Court to weigh in. Here is what’s at stake.
Even as a federal appeals court said late Wednesday that it would allow the abortion pill mifepristone to remain on the market, it sided with a federal judge in Texas by limiting distribution and access to the drug.
The move potentially makes it much harder for many Americans to get the pill, which is part of a two-drug regimen that now accounts for more than half of the abortions in the United States.
Here’s what is at stake and what could happen next.What’s at stake?
The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, knocked down the most contentious part of the ruling by Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas, who said last week that the Food and Drug Administration had improperly approved the drug.
But the court left in place parts of Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision that could severely curtail nationwide access to mifepristone, further complicating an already thorny case. The decision essentially turns back the clock to 2016, when the F.D.A. added a series of guidelines that eased access to the pill, including by blocking patients from receiving the drug by mail.
Experts say doing so would have significant consequences: Patients would have to take time off work, pay travel costs to get to a medical office and endure the stigma of going in public to seek an abortion, rather than getting the pills discreetly at home.
