Politico reports, Alito keeps access to abortion pill unchanged for next five days while Supreme Court reviews emergency appeals:
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito temporarily froze a lower court’s ruling that would restrict access to a common abortion pill, preserving the status quo for the next five days but leaving the drug’s future availability uncertain.
The interim orders issued Friday afternoon do not signal how Alito or the full court is likely to rule on the substance of the case. They merely give the justices more time to consider a pair of emergency appeals from the Biden administration and a drug company that manufactures the medication.
The administration and the company petitioned the justices to block a Wednesday ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that would dramatically limit access to mifepristone, which is used in more than half of all abortions nationwide.
The appeals court ruling — if it takes effect — would suspend several policies the FDA has approved since 2016 to make the pills more accessible, including telemedicine prescription, mail delivery and retail pharmacy dispensing. The ruling also would roll back the window of time patients are allowed to take the drug from 10 to seven weeks of pregnancy and suspend approval of the generic version of the drug — a scenario the Biden administration warned would have wreaked “chaos” nationwide.
The ruling had been scheduled to take effect on Saturday. But it is now frozen by Alito’s interim orders — known as administrative stays — keeping everything on hold until next Wednesday night while the justices receive further briefing and decide whether to issue a longer stay. The anti-abortion medical groups challenging the pill’s approval have until noon on Tuesday to file their arguments.
The Supreme Court’s move maintains, for now, the current national patchwork of abortion access, with near-total bans on abortion in many red states and broad access to the pills in blue states.
Alito, who wrote the court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade and allowing a wave of GOP-led states to impose abortion bans, single-handedly issued the administrative stays on Friday because all emergency appeals from the 5th Circuit are initially directed to him. As is customary on interim orders, he did not elaborate on why he granted the temporary relief.
The FDA did not immediately comment on the stay orders or how they plan to enforce the restrictions if the high court allows them to go into effect.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.