Supreme Court ruling on abortion pill could cause ‘profound harm’, Biden administration warns

The Biden administration urged the Supreme Court to maintain widespread access to a drug commonly used in medical abortions and warned that restricting the necessary medication would “inflict profound harm on women, the medical system, the agency, and the public.”

US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and counsels for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) filed a joint brief on Tuesday in defence of mifepristone – the drug which a group of conservative doctors and associates are challenging.

In their brief, the federal agencies said that challengers’, known as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, are incorrect inclaiming that the FDA’s approval of mifepristone in 2000 was flawed and that later decisions to make the drug more accessible were a safety risk.

“Study after study has shown that when mifepristone is taken in accordance with its approved conditions of use, serious adverse events are exceedingly rare,” the Biden administration said in its brief.

The government said that numerous studies and real-life observations were conducted from the time of the drug’s approval in 2000 to 2016 when the FDA determined the medication could be safely taken to 10 weeks gestation and did not require more than one in-person visit for patients. The agency also lowered the dosing regimen in 2016 after finding it was as effective.

Despite this, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine says the medication is dangerous and the FDA did not conduct enough studies to determine its safety.

“To the government’s knowledge, this case marks the first time any court has restricted access to an FDA-approved drug by second-guessing FDA’s expert judgment about the conditions required to assure that