The Biden Administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday morning to act swiftly to keep the abortion pill available across the nation, to prevent “profound disruption and grave harm.”
If the Court does not react in a matter of hours, lower court rulings will go into effect tonight with the practical effect that medical abortions will be significantly limited by rules that the federal government itself had not been enforcing for most of the past seven years.
Danco Laboratories, the manufacturer of the drug Mifeprex (brand name for mifepristone), also filed its own plea, predicting dire circumstances for pregnant women in many states and widespread confusion because of conflicting lower court actions in the heated controversy over access.
Both filings suggested that the Food and Drug Administration, the drug industry as a whole, abortion providers and pregnant women have been scrambling over the past week to figure out how to deal with the effects of an unprecedented action of federal courts to second-guess FDA’s approval and repeated findings that the drug is safe and effective in ending early-term pregnancies.
Since last Friday, a federal trial judge in Texas, a federal trial judge in Washington State and a federal appeals court based in New Orleans have issued contradictory opinions and orders on FDA policy for mifepristone. The Texas judge and the appeals court have acted on a nationwide basis, while the Washington State judge gave differing orders to 16 states and Washington, D.C.
Although the Administration and Danco Laboratories filings made clear they most want a temporary suspension of the nationwide orders, they suggested that, at a minimum, the Court grant fast review of the controversy so that it could be decided before the Justices finish their current term in late June or early July.
The Court seems likely to take some action before the day is over. However, the Court also has the option of doing nothing, allowing key parts of the Texas judge’s nationwide ban to go into effect by nightfall.
