(Washington) The US Supreme Court on Thursday restored the conditions of access to mifepristone, the pill used in the majority of abortions in the United States, but supporters of abortion, including President Joe Biden, called for the continuation of the vigilance in the face of threats to this right.
In their unanimous judgment, the nine judges of the court with a conservative majority deny the “interest in acting”, a condition for taking legal action, of the plaintiffs – associations of doctors or practitioners hostile to abortion who do not prescribe or use this pill. They therefore annul the appeal decision, which they had suspended anyway.
An appeals court, composed of ultraconservative judges, had reinstated in 2023 several of the restrictions on access to mifepristone, a pill used for medical abortions, lifted by the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since 2016.
“Plaintiffs have not demonstrated that relaxing the FDA rules would likely actually harm them,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his decision on behalf of the Supreme Court.
“For this reason, the federal courts are not the appropriate avenue to address plaintiffs’ concerns about the FDA’s actions,” he adds, noting that they can bring them to the executive or legislative branch.
Democratic President Joe Biden, who made protecting the right to abortion a focus of his campaign for the November election against his Republican predecessor Donald Trump, took note of the decision but stressed that “the fight continues “.
By its historic judgment of June 2022 annulling the federal guarantee of the right to abortion, the court with a conservative majority gave states full latitude to legislate in this area. Since then, around twenty have banned abortion, whether carried out by medication or surgery, or have strictly regulated it.
Donald Trump prides himself on having, through his appointments of three conservative judges to the Supreme Court, enabled the reversal of jurisprudence in June 2022.
The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research center whose studies are authoritative, said it was “relieved” by the Supreme Court’s ruling on mifepristone, “the only reasonable decision” possible, but deplored that this complaint “in bad faith and without factual or scientific basis” had reached the highest court in the country.
“Even after the failure of this unfounded appeal, we must remain vigilant. The anti-abortion movement relentlessly pursues its goal of banning abortion nationwide,” Destiny Lopez, co-president of the Guttmacher Institute, added in a statement.
The conservative Christian organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) said in a statement that it was “disappointed that the Court did not rule on the merits of the illegitimate actions of the FDA”, but reaffirmed that the reductions in the rules decided by agency endanger women’s health.
Citing potential risks that have been ruled out by scientific consensus, the appeal decision, if confirmed, would have reduced the limit of ten weeks of pregnancy to seven, prohibited the sending of tablets by post and once again made it mandatory to prescribe exclusively by a doctor.
Nearly two-thirds of abortions (63%) in the United States in 2023 were performed medically, the Guttmacher Institute reported in March.
