Abortion pill challenge returns to SCOTUS

Key Facts

| Charlie Riedel/ AP Photo The future of the most popular method of terminating a pregnancy is back before the Supreme Court after the Biden administration and pharmaceutical company Danco appealed a lower court ruling rolling back years of FDA policies broadening access to the drug.
The Supreme Court is unlikely to consider the case until next year at the earliest, and the justices previously ruled that no changes to federal regulation of the pills will happen until then — leaving the current state-by-state patchwork of access in place for now.
The justices will first receive a preliminary round of briefing before deciding whether to add the case to the court’s merits docket and schedule an oral argument.
The 5th Circuit heard arguments on the case in May, and ruled in August to roll back actions the federal government has taken since 2016 to make the pills more accessible, including rules allowing online ordering, mail delivery and pharmacy dispensing of the drugs.