The Supreme Court of the US has temporarily blocked the regulation of a lower court in curbing the use of abortion pills. The abortion pill called mifepristone is used by women to control unwanted pregnancies. The move by the lower court has come to the surface due to litigations filed by anti-abortion groups and medical professionals to wish to impose a ban on the use of the medication.
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Abortion Medications
The largely used abortion medications in the US involve a two-step regimen for aborting an unwanted pregnancy. The first step is the contraceptive tablet called mifepristone while the second is called misoprostol. When taken, the two tablets can help in the termination of the pregnancy. The two also work in the early terms of pregnancy which are till ten weeks.
This method of pregnancy control is heavily used by people, accounting for about fifty per cent of terminations in the US. The mifepristone medicine is produced by Danco Laboratories under the name Mifeprex and GenBioPro Inc which sells a generic version.
The legal dispute
Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a group based in Texas reached a Texas court to sue the US FDA department in 2022. The demand was to ban the same medicine on the grounds that the US Department had used an unlawful process to initiate the production, manufacturing and circulation of the medicine in the year 2020. Further, the Food and Drug Administration department also had not duly checked the adequate safety standards for the same. The lawsuit has been presided over by a district judge named Matthew Kacsmaryk. Danco also intervened in the proceedings to defend its product, while the FDA and mainstream medical professionals defended the use and reliability of the drug.
Source: Reuters
In the 5th circuit issued by the appellate court in the previous week, the court decided to put a temporary stay on the order before the decision comes out. This not only allowed the pill to stay on the market but also imposed certain restrictions on its accessibility. First was the mandatory prescription required by a doctor on the purchase of the medicine. Second was the limited term of pregnancy up to which the abortion can be done through mifepristone. The term was brought down from ten weeks to seven weeks. The court also banned the generic variant by GenBioPro Inc to sell the medicine.
Supreme court’s move
In a recent update, the Biden administration and Danco had appealed to the Supreme Court to overrule the 5th circuit. The supreme court of the US had allowed the temporary stay on discontinuing the use of mifepristone until the verdict of the lower court comes out. The stay will also be exceeded if the Supreme Court takes an appellate role over the case until its verdict has been decided.
As a result, the 5th Circuit three-judge panel will be presiding over the proceedings of the case on May 17. They will also decide whether to withhold or consider the injunctions introduced by the Texas court by Kacmaryk. The latter is yet to provide his judgement on the case that can take up to months or even years, according to the sources.
Source: NBC
According to the US supreme court, the final judgement from the Texas court can take months or years. Despite the judgement, the losing side will have the opportunity to take an appeal to the 5th Circuit of the supreme court.
