The US Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the conditions of access to mifepristone, a pill used in the majority of abortions in the United States, by overturning an appeal decision reinstating a series of restrictions.
In their unanimous judgment, the nine judges of the Court with a conservative majority deny the “interest in acting”, a condition for taking legal action, of the plaintiffs – associations of doctors or practitioners hostile to abortion who do not prescribe or use this pill. They therefore annul the appeal decision, which they had suspended anyway.
An appeals court, made up of ultraconservative judges, reinstated in 2023 several of the restrictions on access to mifepristone, a pill used for medical abortions, lifted by the American Medicines Agency (FDA) since 2016.
“Plaintiffs have not demonstrated that relaxing the FDA rules would likely harm them in fact,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh in his decision on behalf of the Supreme Court.
“For this reason, the federal courts are not the appropriate avenue to address plaintiffs’ concerns about the FDA’s actions,” he adds, noting that they can refer them to the executive or legislative branch.
Citing potential risks that have been ruled out by scientific consensus, the appeal decision, if confirmed, would have reduced the limit of ten weeks of pregnancy to seven, prohibited the sending of the tablets by post and made the delivery of the tablets compulsory once again. prescription exclusively by a doctor.
A shaky right
By its historic judgment of June 2022 annulling the federal guarantee of the right to abortion, the Court with a conservative majority gave states full latitude to legislate in this area.
Since then, around twenty have banned abortion, whether carried out by medication or surgery, or have strictly regulated it.
Joe Biden has made the protection of the right to abortion a focus of his campaign for the November presidential election against his Republican predecessor Donald Trump, whose appointments to the Supreme Court resulted in the reversal of jurisprudence in June 2022.
Nearly two-thirds of abortions (63%) in the United States in 2023 were performed medically, the Guttmacher Institute, a specialized research center, said in March.