WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices on Tuesday seemed to question physicians’ right to sue the Food and Drug Administration to reinstate restrictions around a commonly used abortion pill — a line of questioning that suggests they are unlikely to restrict access to the pill.
Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in particular, repeatedly asked the plaintiffs, a Christian-based medical organization, for examples of when objecting physicians were forced to assist with abortion or its complications as a direct result of the FDA relaxing restrictions around mifepristone prescribing. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, while appearing more sympathetic to the plaintiffs than others, also asked the lawyer representing the agency whether the scenario — a morally opposed doctor forced to treat a patient who had taken mifepristone — was “too speculative.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, interjected at one point to vent about the “rash” of injunctions lower courts have imposed over the past several years, seemingly lobbing a complaint at Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who first heard the case and ordered mifepristone off the market. An appeals court later reversed that ruling but upheld injunctions against two FDA decisions that extended mifepristone use to 10 weeks of pregnancy from seven, and removed the in-person dispensing requirement, which opened the channels for mail orders of the drug.
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