WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Pro-life advocates are registering their disappointment and disagreement Thursday with the U.S. Supreme Court’s dismissal of a challenge to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) drastic relaxation of the rules governing abortion pill restrictions, vowing that the fight is not over.

In December 2021, the Biden administration’s FDA eliminated its requirement that abortion pills be dispensed in person, allowing pharmacists to instead send them through the mail as long as the recipient has a prescription. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sued on behalf of pro-life doctors and activists, eventually getting the nation’s highest court to take the case, which pro-lifers hoped might also impact the FDA’s original approval of mifepristone in 2000 and subsequent relaxation of the cutoff point for taking it from seven to 10 weeks.

READ: BREAKING: Supreme Court rejects pro-life challenge to Biden FDA’s abortion pill scheme

On Tuesday morning, the Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the rule change. “FDA’s regulations apply to doctors prescribing mifepristone and to pregnant women taking mifepristone,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote. “But the plaintiff doctors and medical associations do not prescribe or use mifepristone. And FDA has not required the plaintiffs to do anything or to refrain from doing anything.”

“Because the plaintiffs do not use mifepristone, they obviously can suffer no physical injuries from FDA’s actions relaxing regulation of mifepristone,” he added. “Rather, the plaintiffs say that they are pro-life, oppose elective abortion, and have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to mifepristone being prescribed and used by others.”

Notably, the decision was unanimous, including pro-life conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who wrote a concurring opinion to discuss how the Court’s “third-party standing doctrine is mistaken. As I have previously explained, a plaintiff cannot establish an Article III case or controversy by asserting another person’s rights. So, just as abortionists lack standing to assert the rights of their clients, doctors who oppose abortion cannot vicariously assert the rights of their patients.” 

Battle against Biden admin’s abortion pill rules ‘far from over’

In response, ADF senior counsel Erin Hawley expressed disappointment that the case did not reach the merits of the FDA’s actions, but declared that the group “will continue to advocate for women and work to restore commonsense safeguards for abortion drugs—like an initial office visit to screen for ectopic pregnancies. And we are grateful that three states stand ready to hold the FDA accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of women and girls across this country.”

“The court recognized that our doctors would have standing to protect their conscience rights,” she highlighted. “The government’s initial position was that federal law would not protect our doctors from being forced to participate in abortions. Yet at the Supreme Court, the government changed its position and said that federal conscience laws definitively protect doctors in these circumstances.”

“This about-face explains why the Supreme Court parted ways with every other court to consider this case. And it resulted in the court recognizing that ‘[f]ederal law fully protects doctors against being required to provide abortions or other medical treatment against their consciences,’” Hawley said. 

Liberty Counsel noted that the ruling “leaves the door open for another challenger who can show a direct injury from Mifepristone traceable to the FDA’s deregulation,” with founder and chairman Mat Staver declaring the battle “far from over.”

“The same lawsuit can be refiled with different plaintiffs who have standing,” he stressed. “The FDA should no longer be allowed to circumvent safety laws to allow a eugenic drug to destroy innocent children and harm women. Chemical abortions are never safe and harm women and kill children.” 

READ: 39,000 UK women suffered DIY abortion complications over five years: report

In a statement emailed to LifeSiteNews, Human Coalition national director for public policy Chelsey Youman called it a “travesty that the FDA will not be held accountable for the numerous ways that abortion drugs harm women and kill children,” but pledged that its pregnancy services and help to women harmed by abortion drugs will continue.

“Furthermore, the Comstock Act prohibits mailing abortifacients and remains in effect despite the FDA’s illegal mail-order abortion pill scheme,” Youman added. “We call on all states to uphold this law by cracking down on the smugglers of these deadly drugs. It took 50 years to overturn Roe in this country, and the pro-life movement is poised to continue the fight to end the scourge of abortion drugs. Women and their children deserve care, not the violence of abortion.”

“This ruling is a devastating blow to women’s health, ignoring the mounting evidence of the significant risks associated with these drugs,” said Dorothy Kane, president of the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses. “We urge lawmakers to prioritize the safety and well-being of women over political expediency, while working towards a higher standard of patient care that includes robust informed consent and ongoing medical supervision for all women considering abortion.”

Live Action founder and president Lila Rose said in an X post: “The ruling is procedural  & fails to engage the [Biden] Admin’s unlawful actions.”

“Those unlawful actions will be back at SCOTUS soon,” she added. 

READ: Why won’t the Supreme Court grant legal status to the unborn in FDA abortion pill case?

“It is deeply disappointing that the FDA was not held accountable today for its reckless decisions,” lamented Dr. Ingrid Skop, a board-certified OB-GYN and the Charlotte Lozier Institute’s vice president and director of medical affairs.

“As a practicing OB-GYN with over 30 years’ experience, I have seen firsthand that mail-order abortion drugs harm my patients, both mothers and their unborn children. Abortion advocates and corporate media ignore their stories as they shamelessly promote mail-order distribution of dangerous drugs without a single in-person doctor visit,” she continued. “As a tragic result, I expect to see more women need blood transfusions, emergency surgery and other drastic measures and our emergency medical systems overwhelmed. This is not health care, it’s abandonment, and the pro-life community will never stop advocating for patients.”

The outcome was “disappointing but not surprising,” said Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins. “The Supreme Court’s decision to send this case away because of ‘standing’ was expected, but we expect the case to continue as those harmed by Chemical Abortion are MANY. The Biden Administration permits abortion water pollution, which impacts all of us, and we also note that several states wanted to join the case because they are covering the costs of increasing emergency room traffic, as women are harmed by the deadly pills. We believe this will continue.”

The Supreme Court is slated to rule in the near future on another abortion-related case, concerning the Biden administration’s plan to force Idaho and other pro-life states to allow abortions under the guise of “medical necessity,” based on a novel interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment & Active Labor Act (EMTALA), a law that is actually about providing basic medical care to anyone who needs it, explicitly including unborn children.