US Supreme Court allows continued availability of abortion pill pending legal appeals

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The US Supreme Court on Friday night granted an emergency request by the Department of Justice to block lower court rulings that would have severely restricted availability of the abortion pill mifepristone while appeals in the case continue: mifepristone remains broadly available for now, Christian Today reports.

The long-term availability of the pill remains uncertain as the Supreme Court transferred the case back to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for a full hearing on 17 May.

The case arose when the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine filed suit against the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), alleging that it illegally fast-tracked approval for the drug through a process intended for treatments of life-threatening illnesses, Christian Today reports.

In answer to that suit, Texas court judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that mifepristone should be banned on the grounds that the FDA had indeed violated federal rules for drug approvals, CT reports.

The DOJ and Danco Laboratories, the distributor of the brand-name version of mifepristone, Mifeprex, then asked the Supreme Court for an emergency stay of Kacsmaryk’s ruling.

“We are hopeful that when the court takes up the expedited hearing on May 17 that it will confirm the fact that these drugs are dangerous to women,” Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said in a statement.

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