Marjorie Taylor Greene and GOP lawmakers enter Supreme Court case on abortion pill
Kaelan Deese
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A coalition of doctors opposed to abortion and a group of 147 Republican lawmakers were among the parties urging the Supreme Court to restrict access to a common abortion drug while legal challenges play out in lower courts.
The high court has a Wednesday-before-midnight deadline to act on a decision stemming from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which upheld parts of a Texas federal district judge’s ruling to override the government’s 2000 approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in a nonsurgical abortion process.
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The coalition, led by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, wrote in a filing that the justices should leave in place the appeals court ruling that would suspend several regulatory decisions by the Food and Drug Administration since 2016 that eased the process for obtaining the drug.
“Across decades, the agency has stripped away every meaningful and necessary safeguard on chemical abortion, demonstrating callous disregard for women’s well-being, unborn life, and statutory limits,” Erik C. Baptist, attorney for the doctors, wrote in the filing.
Meanwhile, a total of 147 GOP representatives and senators of 37 different states, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), issued a separate brief asking the justices to uphold the appeals court decision. In contrast, 253 Democrats joined an April 14 brief backing the FDA’s approval.
A group of former FDA officials who served across a range of past Democratic and Republican presidencies argued in their April 14 brief that “mifepristone’s approval was the function of the orderly operation of the agency process.”
In total, there have been 15 briefs filed in favor of the government’s position and seven siding with the physicians against the FDA’s approval.
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The Biden administration’s Justice Department, which succeeded in having Justice Samuel Alito issue a temporary administrative stay on the appeals court decision last week, is expected to file a response over the matter Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, after which the court could rule at any time.
The battle over mifepristone ignited nearly two weeks ago when District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk sided with doctors opposed to abortion who claim the FDA did not evaluate the psychological or long-term medical consequences of the pill, which the agency had deemed safe and effective.