Advocates Warily Eye Legal Challenge to Abortion Pills

Reproductive rights advocates are on edge over a lawsuit to revoke the decades-old Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of mifepristone, which, if successful, would end legal access to abortion pills nationwide.

Advocates and legal experts say the suit has no merit, but they fear conservative courts will think otherwise.

Abortion pills have become one of the next major fronts in the fight over reproductive health care in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and the lawsuit is seen by both sides as the start of the battle to come.

Mifepristone, a drug that blocks hormones necessary for pregnancy, was approved by the FDA in 2000. It is used with a second drug called misoprostol, which causes contractions and essentially induces a miscarriage.

Jenny Ma, senior counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said she anticipates seeing challenges in the courts as well as laws coming out of state legislatures that would either ban medication abortion outright or institute restrictions so significant it may as well be a ban. 

“The anti-abortion activists are pushing the boundaries of what that [Dobbs] decision could lead to,” Ma said. “This does not end with the Dobbs decision, and that there will be so many more restrictions and laws and lawsuits that follow because of it.”
Katie Glenn, state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said limiting the availability of abortion pills is a major priority for her organization. They want states to crack down on the ability to order the drugs online and then have the pills shipped across state lines. 

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