SCOTUS Upholds Access To Abortion Pill

Image copyright: AP [via Al Jazeera]

The Facts

  • The US Supreme Court on Friday ruled that mifepristone, a widely used abortion pill, would remain on the market while a lawsuit in a lower court plays out.

  • The decision to uphold national access to mifepristone means the drug will be widely available — at least in states where abortion is legal and the medication was previously available — for up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy.


The Spin

Left narrative

Access to mifepristone should never have been in jeopardy in the first place. Unfortunately, lower court judges engaged in outrageous judicial activism, including second-guessing scientific judgments, to limit access to abortion pills used by over 5M women in the US since the FDA's decades-old approval. This case is completely absurd as it rests on the evidence given by anti-abortion doctors, who should have been found to lack standing as they would have been if the case had involved any other drug.

Right narrative

Self-managed abortions constitute murder under strict abortion bans. While it has been on the market for nearly a quarter century, the progesterone blocker mifepristone kills unborn babies by depriving them of nutrients and can have severe repercussions for the mother's health. It is unacceptable that, instead of increasing oversight of the drug, the FDA approved it in violation of its statutory duty, eliminating safeguards and even making it more accessible.


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