Supreme Court stays order banning abortion drug mifepristone

The Supreme Court stayed a lower court ruling on Friday that would have blocked access to medication abortion throughout the United States.

The decision means that for now, women will retain access to the drug — at least in states where abortion remains legal.

Earlier this month, District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee in Amarillo, Texas, ruled to block the Food and Drug Administration's long-standing authorization of the abortion drug mifepristone, overruling both the expert medical opinion of regulators and two decades of data showing the medication is safer than Viagra or penicillin.

That ruling meant that, even in states where abortion is legal, women would have to schedule more invasive and time-consuming surgical procedures instead, or rely on misoprostol, a drug usually taken in tandem with mifepristone that is less effective on its own. Kacsmaryk's ruling was panned by many legal analysts and was so controversial that even a Republican lawmaker, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), suggested the FDA should simply ignore it.

Shortly after that decision, a three-judge panel on the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit blocked the ruling, saying that the approval of mifepristone was outside the statute of limitations – it was first approved in 2000. But two Trump-appointed judges on the panel left in place Kacsmaryk's nullification of more recent mifepristone regulations, including those that make it available by telemedicine.

The Justice Department made a formal request to the Supreme Court to block the appeals court's decision because of limits it put on access to the drug.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, punted the deadline before a decision must be made to midnight Friday to give the Court more time to debate.