The US Supreme Court decided this Friday to maintain, for the time being, full access to mifepristone, the most widely used abortion pill in the United States. The most important judicial decision on abortion – an issue that has dominated much of the world power’s social and political debate in the past year – since last June, the same court has struck down the constitutional protection for voluntary interruption of pregnancy that had been ruling Since the seventies.
I explained that sentence Conservative turn It was taken by the Supreme Council after the presidency of Donald Trump, who had the opportunity to nominate three judges during his only term in the White House so far. The direct result of the ruling was the entry into force of restrictions or outright bans on abortion in dozens of conservative states.
This court decision and the restrictions on abortion caused all eyes to turn to the abortion pill, the most widely used system in the United States to terminate pregnancy: anti-abortion advocates to prevent access and advocates for abortion access to ensure it. Many assumed that the Supreme Court justices, by a conservative 6-3 vote, would take the step of limiting access to mifepristone. But, in an urgent decision, which does not affect the substance of the matter and which only temporarily preserves access to the grain, only two conservative justices—Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas—objected.
As important as it is, the Supreme Court’s decision is just one step in a long legal battle over the abortion pill. The Supreme Court had to step in after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to challenge decisions the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had made since 2016 to facilitate access to mifepristone: extending the use period from seven to ten weeks of pregnancy, the possibility of obtaining pills by mail and allowing By prescription by medical professionals other than physicians. The decision followed an appeal by a conservative Texas judge who suspended the FDA’s approval of the drug mifepristone 23 years ago.
The Biden administration and Danco Laboratories, the drug company that makes mifepristone, have asked the Supreme Court to take precautionary measures to paralyze the appeals court’s decision while the merits of the case are worked out.
US President Joe Biden was quick to celebrate the Supreme Court’s decision, which preserves access to the abortion pill used by millions of American women each year. “The stakes could not be higher for women across America,” Biden said in a political message, after abortion became one of the central issues in last year’s midterm elections, and just days before he filed for re-election. I will continue to fight politically motivated attacks on women’s health. But let’s be clear: The people of the United States must continue to use their votes as their own and elect a Congress that passes a law restoring Roe v. Wade’s protections, he said of the 1973 ruling that the Supreme Court dismantled last year.
