Supreme Court upholds broad access to abortion pill

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld access to a widely available abortion pill, rejecting a bid from a group of anti-abortion organizations and doctors to unravel the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the pill.

In a unanimous decision, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the FDA’s actions.

The case had returned the issue of abortion access back to the Supreme Court, even as the conservative majority, in overturning Roe v. Wade, declared that it would cede the question “to the people and their elected representatives.” The challenge to the availability of mifepristone, a medication used in a majority of abortions in the country, reflected one of the latest fronts over abortion access.

Here’s what to know:

• An umbrella group of anti-abortion medical organizations, along with several doctors, challenged the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, which happened more than two decades ago. They filed a lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas, in the fall of 2022, a city in the Texas Panhandle where a single federal judge, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, hears all new civil cases.

• The case before the court centers on changes the FDA put in place in 2016 and 2021, broadening distribution of the pill by easing patients’ ability to receive it through telemedicine and mail.

• At oral arguments, a majority of the justices appeared deeply skeptical of efforts to severely curtail access to a widely used abortion pill, questioning whether a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations had a right to bring a lawsuit in the first place.