US Supreme Court unanimously preserves access to widely used abortion pill, mifepristone

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously preserved access to a medication that was used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the US last year, in the court’s first abortion decision since conservative justices overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago.

The justices ruled that abortion opponents lacked the legal right to sue over the federal Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication, mifepristone, and the FDA’s subsequent actions to ease access to it.

The case had threatened to restrict access to mifepristone across the country, including in states where abortion remains legal.

The fight for protecting the right to abortions continues despite the Supreme Court’s decision, President Joe Biden said on Thursday.

“Today’s decision does not change the fact that the fight for reproductive freedom continues,” Biden said, noting that the constitutional court had previously overturned a nationwide guarantee to abortion access.

The high court is separately considering another abortion case, about whether a federal law on emergency treatment at hospitals overrides state abortion bans in rare emergency cases in which a pregnant patient’s health is at serious risk.

More than 6 million people have used mifepristone since 2000. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone and primes the uterus to respond to the contraction-causing effect of a second drug, misoprostol. The two-drug regimen has been used to end a pregnancy through 10 weeks gestation.