Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito extended an administrative stay over a lower court ruling that threatened to limit access to a common abortion pill until Friday, giving the justices more time to mull their decision.
The move to extend an administrative stay is procedural and comes just days after Alito froze a lower judge’s decision to reverse the government’s 2000 approval of the common abortion drug, mifepristone.
SUPREME COURT TO DECIDE ABORTION PILL DISPUTE LESS THAN A YEAR AFTER ROE REVERSAL
The decision means that all of District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s April 7 ruling that threatened to revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug will not go into effect until at least Friday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time.
Days after the district judge’s decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit unwound some of the lower court’s decision but kept in place a block on a seven-year effort by the agency to widen access to the drug.
Ahead of Alito’s decision, the manufacturer of the generic version of mifepristone, GenBioPro, filed a lawsuit against the FDA in Maryland federal court to maintain its ability to market the drug.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals halted some of the Texas decision while maintaining stays on more recent FDA changes that expanded access to the pill through telemedicine, mail, and retail pharmacies. With Alito’s decision, no part of that appeals court ruling would go into effect until the late-Friday deadline.
Alito, who is also the author of the opinion last summer that allowed states to impose laws severely restricting abortion access, is handling the matter because he is tasked to oversee requests stemming from the Louisiana-based 5th Circuit.
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Meanwhile, the Supreme Court must consider a separate district court ruling, issued less than an hour after Kacsmaryk’s initial decision, that complicated the matter with a conflicting decision. Washington-based District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, blocked the FDA from limiting the availability of mifepristone in much of the country. That ruling, also issued April 7, applies to just 17 liberal-leaning states and Washington, D.C., which filed a lawsuit in February challenging the FDA’s regulations over the drug.
As of Wednesday, mifepristone is lawful and remains available in some form in 37 states, even some states with abortion restrictions.
