LOADINGERROR LOADINGSupreme Court arguments on Tuesday, regarding the legality of federal regulations allowing the distribution of the abortion drug mifepristone through the mail, hinged on whether the anti-abortion doctors association that brought the case had standing to sue in the first place.The case, known as FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and combined with a similar case, centers on whether the Food and Drug Administration overlooked health and safety issues when it loosened restrictions around mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in medication abortion, in 2016 and 2021. The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, and the medication has since been used by nearly 6 million people in the U.S., according to the department. Advertisement
The case could roll back access to mifepristone, which is generally prescribed as part of a two-drug regimen alongside misoprostol for abortion and miscarriage care through 10 weeks of pregnancy in the U.S.If the court sides with abortion opponents, mifepristone could be prohibited from being sent through the mail and distributed at large pharmacy chains, even in states where abortion is legal. A ruling for the anti-choice movement could also restrict the use of mifepristone from its current approval of 10 weeks to seven weeks, and end telehealth visits where abortion pills are prescribed. During arguments, however, a majority of the justices appeared highly skeptical of whether the doctors organization Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine could even sue to begin with.Plaintiffs are required to show real harm in order to obtain standing to sue, and from the moment arguments began, the justices homed in on whether the group, and specifically the doctors cited as examples in its briefs, had proven harm.Advertisement
Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts all also questioned who would have standing if the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine didn’t. Thomas and Alito asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar whether anyone would have standing to sue.“If we agree with you on standing, could you give us an example on who would have standing to challenge these FDA actions?” Thomas asked her.Roberts wanted to know whether the alliance could obtain standing if FDA data showed a “significant number of consequences” or “higher likelihood of an emergency room visit” from the change in the agency’s rules for mifepristone distribution.Meanwhile, Alito, the author of the court’s 2022 majority decision overturning Roe v. Wade, pressed Prelogar on whether there is “anybody who could challenge in court the lawfulness of what the FDA did here?”Advertisement
These questions suggested that even the court’s most conservative justices saw the alliance’s standing argument as tenuous at best.Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch went further, lambasting cases like this one where a plaintiff fails to show significant harm in a case seeking sweeping nationwide relief.“We’ve had, one might call, a rash of universal injunctions or vacaturs,” Gorsuch said, referencing cases seeking to block federal government actions. “This case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other federal government action.”Justice Elena Kagan repeatedly questioned Erin Hawley ― senior counsel for Alliance for Defending Freedom, which represented Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine ― about the plaintiffs’ standing for the case, which Kagan described as “probabilistic.”“You need a person. You need a person to come in and meet the court’s regular standing requirements. So who’s your person? I know you have seven of them,” Kagan asked Hawley, referring to the anti-abortion doctors who joined Alliance for Defending Freedom’s case. Advertisement
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson described the injury claimed by plaintiffs as a “significant mismatch,” referring to doctors who object to abortion and their requested solution to roll back access to mifepristone around the country.“It makes perfect sense for the individual doctors to seek an exemption, but as I understand it, they already have that,” Jackson said. “And so what they’re asking for here is that, in order to prevent them from possibly ever having to do these kind of procedures, everyone else should be prevented from getting access to this medication. So, why isn’t that plainly overbroad scope of the remedy the end of this case?”Thomas continued to bring the conversation back to the Comstock Act, an 1873 law that states it’s illegal to send “obscene” materials in the mail including items that relate to sexual health and contraception.Jessica Ellsworth, attorney for Danco Laboratories, the maker of mifepristone, responded that the act has not been enforced in about 100 years.Hawley had a different response when Thomas asked about the Comstock Act again. “The act says that drugs should not be mailed either through the mail or common carriers,” she said. “We think the plain text of that is pretty clear.”Advertisement
Despite the law having not been enforced in the last century, the Comstock Act has been revived by the anti-abortion movement since federal abortion protections were repealed. If enforced, the archaic legislation would prohibit increasingly common telehealth medicine that allows people across the country to access medication abortion by mail.“Comstock is an antiquated, puritanical law designed to suppress ‘vice in all forms’ and criminalize bodily autonomy,” Elisa Wells, co-founder of Plan C, an organization that distributes medication abortion via mail, said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.“While it’s tempting to laugh in astonishment at the level of proud ignorance and reactionary attitudes on display, there is too much harm and chaos that will result from imposing restrictions on modern medicine based on an 1873 law: with an outsized impact on communities of color, undocumented individuals, people with special needs, LGBTQ+, low income, and youth,” Wells said.Since the Supreme Court repealed federal abortion protectio …
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The case could roll back access to mifepristone, which is generally prescribed as part of a two-drug regimen alongside misoprostol for abortion and miscarriage care through 10 weeks of pregnancy in the U.S.If the court sides with abortion opponents, mifepristone could be prohibited from being sent through the mail and distributed at large pharmacy chains, even in states where abortion is legal. A ruling for the anti-choice movement could also restrict the use of mifepristone from its current approval of 10 weeks to seven weeks, and end telehealth visits where abortion pills are prescribed. During arguments, however, a majority of the justices appeared highly skeptical of whether the doctors organization Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine could even sue to begin with.Plaintiffs are required to show real harm in order to obtain standing to sue, and from the moment arguments began, the justices homed in on whether the group, and specifically the doctors cited as examples in its briefs, had proven harm.Advertisement
Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts all also questioned who would have standing if the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine didn’t. Thomas and Alito asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar whether anyone would have standing to sue.“If we agree with you on standing, could you give us an example on who would have standing to challenge these FDA actions?” Thomas asked her.Roberts wanted to know whether the alliance could obtain standing if FDA data showed a “significant number of consequences” or “higher likelihood of an emergency room visit” from the change in the agency’s rules for mifepristone distribution.Meanwhile, Alito, the author of the court’s 2022 majority decision overturning Roe v. Wade, pressed Prelogar on whether there is “anybody who could challenge in court the lawfulness of what the FDA did here?”Advertisement
These questions suggested that even the court’s most conservative justices saw the alliance’s standing argument as tenuous at best.Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch went further, lambasting cases like this one where a plaintiff fails to show significant harm in a case seeking sweeping nationwide relief.“We’ve had, one might call, a rash of universal injunctions or vacaturs,” Gorsuch said, referencing cases seeking to block federal government actions. “This case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other federal government action.”Justice Elena Kagan repeatedly questioned Erin Hawley ― senior counsel for Alliance for Defending Freedom, which represented Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine ― about the plaintiffs’ standing for the case, which Kagan described as “probabilistic.”“You need a person. You need a person to come in and meet the court’s regular standing requirements. So who’s your person? I know you have seven of them,” Kagan asked Hawley, referring to the anti-abortion doctors who joined Alliance for Defending Freedom’s case. Advertisement
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson described the injury claimed by plaintiffs as a “significant mismatch,” referring to doctors who object to abortion and their requested solution to roll back access to mifepristone around the country.“It makes perfect sense for the individual doctors to seek an exemption, but as I understand it, they already have that,” Jackson said. “And so what they’re asking for here is that, in order to prevent them from possibly ever having to do these kind of procedures, everyone else should be prevented from getting access to this medication. So, why isn’t that plainly overbroad scope of the remedy the end of this case?”Thomas continued to bring the conversation back to the Comstock Act, an 1873 law that states it’s illegal to send “obscene” materials in the mail including items that relate to sexual health and contraception.Jessica Ellsworth, attorney for Danco Laboratories, the maker of mifepristone, responded that the act has not been enforced in about 100 years.Hawley had a different response when Thomas asked about the Comstock Act again. “The act says that drugs should not be mailed either through the mail or common carriers,” she said. “We think the plain text of that is pretty clear.”Advertisement
Despite the law having not been enforced in the last century, the Comstock Act has been revived by the anti-abortion movement since federal abortion protections were repealed. If enforced, the archaic legislation would prohibit increasingly common telehealth medicine that allows people across the country to access medication abortion by mail.“Comstock is an antiquated, puritanical law designed to suppress ‘vice in all forms’ and criminalize bodily autonomy,” Elisa Wells, co-founder of Plan C, an organization that distributes medication abortion via mail, said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.“While it’s tempting to laugh in astonishment at the level of proud ignorance and reactionary attitudes on display, there is too much harm and chaos that will result from imposing restrictions on modern medicine based on an 1873 law: with an outsized impact on communities of color, undocumented individuals, people with special needs, LGBTQ+, low income, and youth,” Wells said.Since the Supreme Court repealed federal abortion protectio …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]