Supreme Court throws out challenge to key abortion pill mifepristone

A widely used abortion drug will remain on the market after the US Supreme Court tossed a legal challenge from anti-abortion activists.

Justices unanimously rejected arguments from an influential conservative Christian legal group that challenged the federal government’s approval of the drug mifepristone, which is also used to treat miscarriages.

A ruling on Thursday found that the group lacked “standing,” meaning a legal right to sue, but conservatives on the high court left the door open for anti-abortion activists to challenge the drug.

“The plaintiffs have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to elective abortion and to FDA’s relaxed regulation of mifepristone,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote for the court’s majority.

But those objections are not enough to “establish a justiciable case or controversy in federal court,” he wrote.

“Here, the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that FDA’s relaxed regulatory requirements likely would cause them to suffer an injury in fact,” he added.

Plaintiffs should instead present their objections to Congress or the FDA itself, not the courts, “and they may also express their views about abortion and mifepristone to fellow citizens, including in the political and electoral processes,” Kavanaugh added.

Republican officials in several states are still pushing litigation with the hopes oftaking it off the market altogether.

The case marked the first major abortion rights decision at the high court in the wake of its 2022 decision to revoke a constitutional right to care.

Months after that ruling to overturn Roe v Wade, Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit targeting mifepristone from Amarillo, Texas, on behalf of a group of anti-abortion physicians