The Justice Department and the manufacturer of a widely used abortion pill urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to preserve full access to the drug, warning that a lower-court ruling restricting its availability “threatens profound harms” nationwide.
“The loss of access to mifepristone would be damaging for women and healthcare providers around the Nation. For many patients, mifepristone is the best method to lawfully terminate their early pregnancies,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices in court papers.
“There is no equitable justification for allowing parties whose asserted injuries are at best attenuated – and whose relevant claims assert only that FDA failed adequately to explain its actions – to secure disruptive nationwide relief that threatens profound harms to the government, the healthcare system, patients, and the public,” Prelogar wrote.
The pair of filings from the Justice Department and Danco Laboratories, a manufacturer of the drug and an intervenor in the case, lay out their arguments for why the justices should overturn the lower-court ruling that curbed access to mifepristone, including that the pill’s challengers didn’t have the legal right – known as “standing” – to sue the government over its approval of the drug and the regulatory regime that eased access to it.
“The Fifth Circuit ran roughshod over this Court’s precedents,” attorneys for Danco wrote in their filing. “The court’s standing analysis would give medical organizations standing to challenge virtually every government regulation that touches on health or safety.”
The justices agreed last year to review the case, though the court has not yet scheduled oral arguments. More briefs from the parties are expected in the coming weeks.
In its filing Tuesday night, the drugmaker, like the government, defended the…
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