Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 13, 2023 / 12:24 pm
The United States Supreme Court has announced it will once again consider a high-stakes abortion pill case. The outcome of the case could potentially reinstate safeguards that would prohibit sending these deadly drugs by mail.
The nation's highest court will review a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling earlier this year which determined that a "Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy" - also known as REMS - should be reinstated to require that women know the facts about Mifepristone ahead of consumption. The Biden Justice Department and the abortion drug manufacturer Danco Laboratories appealed the decision in September.
The High Court will allot one hour for oral arguments in the case, called Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Food and Drug Administration (AHM v. FDA). Because of its potential to curtail the use of the drug that accounts for over half of all U.S. abortions, the case is expected to be the most consequential abortion case since Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe v. Wade.
Mifepristone works by cutting off the nutrients necessary for an unborn baby to survive, essentially starving the child to death. A second pill called Misoprostol is then ingested to induce contractions and expel the dead baby from the womb.