STAT June 13, 2024
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that anti-abortion doctors did not have standing to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s regulation of the abortion pill mifepristone.
The decision in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine reverses an appeals court order to require in-person prescribing of mifepristone, which had been available though telehealth and mail orders since 2021.
It’s a victory for the Biden administration’s efforts to protect access to reproductive health care in the wake of the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. It also affirms the FDA’s authority to regulate medicines, avoiding an outcome that the biopharmaceutical industry had warned could destabilize the drug approval process.
The justices found that the physicians who sued couldn’t be harmed...