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Dec. 13 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday decided to take on an abortion pill case that may lead to a decision on the national availability of the drug mifepristone, including by mail. The court will hear appeals from the Biden administration and Danco Laboratories, the company that makes the Mifeprex brand of mifepristone, defending policies that broadened access to the pill.
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A ruling is expected in June following oral arguments early next year.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre welcomed the Supreme Court's decision to take up the case in a statement, saying a lower court decision "threatens to undermine" the Food and Drug Administration's independent approval and regulation of mifepristone as safe and effective, adding the Biden administration is "firmly committed to defending women's ability to access reproductive care."
"Across the country, we've seen unprecedented attacks on women's freedom to make their own health decisions. States have imposed extreme and dangerous abortion bans that put the health of women in jeopardy and that threaten tor criminalize doctors for providing the health care that their patients need and that they are trained to provide," she said. "No woman should be unable to access the health care that she needs. This should not happen in America, period."
There are two cases before the court -- Danco Laboratories vs. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and Food and Drug Administration vs. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
The Supreme Court hearing will focus on actions by the FDA to make access to the pill easier beginning in 2016, including a 2021 decision that made the drug available by mail amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
It will also review moves by the FDA in 2016 to broaden the window that mifepristone could be used from seven weeks gestation to 10 weeks and reduced the number of required in-person visits from three to one, while also lowering the dosing regimen.
The court turned away a separate challenge to the FDA's decision in 2000 to approve the use of mifepristone and the 2019 approval of a generic form of mifepristone made by GenBioPro is also not at issue.
The Biden administration appeal came after Texas District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled against the FDA approval of expanding access to mifepristone in April.
The U.S. 5th Circuit federal appeals court in New Orleans partially upheld the Texas court to override the FDA's approval of mifepristone. But that court ruled the pill would remain available until legal challenges are heard.
The administration said in a statement after the Texas court ruling that it is fighting the ruling because the lawsuit in Texas was "part of broader efforts to ban abortion nationwide and prevent women from making their own decisions about their own bodies without government interference."
The legal challenge to the FDA approval of mifepristone was filed by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, represented by the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom.
"Every court so far has agreed that the FDA acted unlawfully in removing common-sense safeguards for women and authorizing dangerous mail-order abortions," Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Erin Hawley said. "We urge the Supreme Court to do the same."
The case challenges the FDA approval process for the drug, not the right to abortion itself.
The Supreme Court left the FDA approval for mifepristone in place in April, pending legal challenges.
The court sided with the Biden administration, rejecting the Texas and 5th Circuit rulings to keep the abortion pill broadly available.
The American Civil Liberties Union joined over 200 groups in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court to support the availability of mifepristone.
In a June statement about the case the ACLU said, "Our brief argued that these decisions constitute impermissible judicial overreach. They rest on self-serving anecdotal data and discredited testimony, while declining to engage with the rigorous-and plentiful- scientific data supporting the FDA's decisions."
