Supreme Court Rejects Challenge To Abortion Medication, But At What Cost?
Health Affairs June 21, 2024
On June 13, 2024, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to FDA’s approval of medication abortion, shunting aside one of the latest efforts to impede access to safe abortion after the Supreme Court abrogated the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health organization. But in so doing, the Court arguably adopted a broad reading of the rights of medical providers to refuse to provide treatments such as abortion that violate their conscience, an approach that could significantly impact patient safety and access to reproductive health services and other treatments.
Abortion medication is a common form of abortion care. According to the Guttmacher Institute, abortion medication accounted for 63 percent of all abortions in the U.S. in 2023....