The Supreme Court will decide whether to put stricter limits on abortion pills that are now the most common method for ending early pregnancies.
The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will decide whether to put stricter limits on abortion pills that are now the most common method for ending early pregnancies.
The justices voted to hear the Biden administration’s appeal and reconsider rulings by conservative judges in Texas who disagreed with the Food and Drug Administration’s view that mifepristone is safe and effective and may be dispensed widely.
At issue are FDA regulations in 2016 and 2021 that extended the time for using the pills from seven weeks to 10 weeks of pregnancy and allowed for dispensing the medication without requiring one or more visits to a doctor’s office. Currently the pills may be dispensed through a pharmacy or sent through the mail.
Since the drugs were first approved by the FDA in 2000, they have been used by more than 5 million women in this country and even more around the world, government lawyers said.
The FDA case will be heard in the spring, and it is the most significant abortion case since the court’s conservative majority struck down the constitutional right to abortion in 2022.
