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Abortion Pill Case Fails — What Happens Next?

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The Supreme Court may have thrown out this case over legal standing, but the fight against abortion pills is far from over.

From The Hill. The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an effort by abortion opponents to limit access to mifepristone, one of the two drugs used for a medication abortion.

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The case was brought by a group of anti-abortion doctors in Texas called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which formed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision ending Roe v. Wade in 2022.

The Court ruled that the anti-abortion doctors and associations that filed the lawsuit do not have legal standing to sue, because they don’t have any direct relationship with the regulation of mifepristone. …

The ruling was unanimous, and procedural

The 9-0 decision was authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by former President Trump.

The ruling was procedural, meaning it didn’t address the underlying regulatory or safety issues the plaintiffs raised. Instead, Kavanaugh wrote that the alliance couldn’t show that any of its doctors had been directly impacted by the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) actions.

“We recognize that many citizens, including the plaintiff doctors here, have sincere concerns about and objections to others using mifepristone and obtaining abortions,” Kavanaugh wrote. “But citizens and doctors do not have standing to sue simply because others are allowed to engage in certain activities — at least without the plaintiffs demonstrating how they would be injured by the government’s alleged underregulation of others.” …

Access isn’t changing, but it’s still a patchwork

Thursday’s ruling maintained the status quo but did not make mifepristone widely available.

The drug will remain available to people up to the 10th week of pregnancy and will still be available through the mail. Nurses and other nonphysicians are still allowed to prescribe it.

But it all depends on where you live. …

Abortion is almost completely banned in more than a dozen states, meaning mifepristone is illegal. …

This case may not be over

Thursday’s ruling may not be the end of legal challenges to mifepristone.

The ruling doesn’t rule out a new lawsuit by plaintiffs with stronger arguments on standing.

But the bigger threat could come from a trio of red states.

Idaho, Kansas and Missouri sought to join the case. The Supreme Court rejected the request, but a conservative judge in Amarillo, Texas, who initially ruled against the FDA, allowed them to intervene in his district. …

But even if the case is ultimately dismissed in Amarillo, abortion advocates said they expect to see copycat lawsuits in either Idaho, Missouri or Kansas.

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(Excerpt from The Hill. Photo Credit: Liudmila Chernetska/Getty Images)

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