Danco Laboratories, a pharmaceutical business, sought the Supreme Court on Friday to take up the case contesting the legitimacy of the abortion drug mifepristone.
In response to a Fifth Circuit decision that would place significant limitations on how the medicine is used and given to patients, Danco made this request.
The company that sells abortion pills, Danco, wants the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s decision. The issue is of “indisputable importance” to both the pharmaceutical sector and women’s health, according to the medication manufacturer.
This case is crucial for women and adolescent girls, medical professionals, and States that rely on FDA action to provide access to safe and effective reproductive health care, according to the legal documents submitted by Danco.
The attorneys added that allowing judicial review of the FDA’s scientific assessments of data would be extremely unstable for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
Nearly 15 months after the court’s conservative majority reversed Roe v. Wade, the important 1973 ruling that guaranteed abortion as a constitutional right, Danco asks the Supreme Court to hear the case. Following that decision, abortion has been outlawed in more than a dozen states.
The new term of the Supreme Court will begin in one month. To take up the lawsuit involving the abortion pill, four justices must concur. Also anticipated is a request for the Supreme Court to hear the case from the US Department of Justice.
Until the Supreme Court rules on the matter, the appeals court’s decision is on hold. In April, the high court, in response to a plea from the Biden administration, put a hold on rulings made by lower courts while the dispute around the pill continues.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit concluded that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recent actions to increase women’s access to mifepristone did not adequately address safety issues.
Mifepristone will continue to be sold in the United States, but patients will encounter extra obstacles to getting the drug if the Supreme Court decides to hear the case and affirm the appeals court’s ruling.
The appeals court restrictions will apply if the high court declines to hear the case.
The most popular way to end a pregnancy in the United States is with the combination of the medication mifepristone and misoprostol.
The appeals court’s ruling would put a halt to the mailing of prescriptions and mifepristone, as well as appointments for telemedicine. Women would need to go to three follow-up appointments while taking the course of medicine, as well as see a doctor in person to acquire a prescription.
The decision also reduces the amount of time a woman can take mifepristone from 10 weeks to seven weeks into her pregnancy.
The legal battle over mifepristone started last November when the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a group of pro-life doctors, filed a lawsuit to reverse the FDA’s more than 20-year-old original approval of the drug.
In April, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a broad order suspending the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.
The appeals court modified Kacsmaryk’s directive but upheld the FDA’s initial approval and its authorisation of a generic version of the drug.
