The News Not Noise Letter: Supreme Court Protects Access to the Abortion Pill, For Now
The High Court preserves mifepristone while litigation proceeds. Plus: cardiac arrest can’t keep Damar Hamlin down, and these birds aren't real, or are they?
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Mifepristone Ruling:
This evening the Supreme Court released an order preserving access to the abortion drug mifepristone while litigation proceeds in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. This ruling ends limits ordered by lower courts which would have significantly restricted access to mifepristone. For the time being, doctors can continue to prescribe mifepristone, including via mail-order pharmacies, and patients can take mifepristone up to 10 weeks of gestation. Justices Alito and Thomas publicly dissented to the SCOTUS order.
This isn’t a final decision. It merely sets the rules for use of the medication while a challenge to mifepristone’s approval works its way through the courts.
The next step: the 5th Circuit will hear the mifepristone case in mid-May, with oral arguments slated to begin on May 17. As a reminder, this case began with a group of anti-abortion doctors suing the FDA and claiming that mifepristone — which has been FDA approved since 2000 and is safer than Viagra, Tylenol, and being pregnant — was inadequately vetted and should be pulled from the market, effectively banning the most vital drug for medication abortion nationwide. Expect that case to be appealed again and ultimately end up before the Supreme Court. You can read more about the Texas ruling that sought to end access to mifepristone here.
Today’s ruling is an indication that challengers have to reach a very high bar to convince a majority of justices to overrule the FDA. The Court could well take up this case (and rule) in the heat of the 2024 election. Buckle up — it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
Immediately after the ruling, Nancy Northrup, the head of the Center for Reproductive Rights, called the decision “a huge relief,” adding, “we’re not out of the woods yet….This case should have been thrown out way before it got to the Supreme Court.” She vowed to “continue to pursue every legal avenue to ensure this unfounded legal attack does not succeed.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America tweeted that “we are confident the case will ultimately reveal the politicized anti-science actions of the @US_FDA and hold them accountable.”
Where is abortion medication legal? USAFacts gathered data on access to the abortion pill in the US. They find that medication abortion is widely available in 22 states and can be prescribed in those states by a clinician. It’s restricted in some form in 15 states and must be prescribed by a doctor/physician. And medication abortion is illegal in 13 states where near-total abortion bans went into effect in 2022.
You can check out an interactive version of the map here.
USA Facts is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civic organization dedicated to making government data available. They are a News Not Noise content partner.
Here’s some news that doesn’t suck:
A Heartwarming Comeback: The football world was shocked when 25-year-old Damar Hamlin, a safety for the Buffalo Bills, went into cardiac arrest on the field in January. Hamlin received lifesaving CPR on the field before he was taken to the hospital where he stayed in the ICU for a week. His recovery has gone so well, that his doctors cleared him to return to play. “My heart is still in the game,” Hamlin said. Hamlin has used his unique position and harrowing experience to advocate for positive change — in March he addressed Congress advocating the Access to AEDs Act, a proposed bill which would award grants to schools to install lifesaving automatic external defibrillator (AED) devices. Hamlin cited shocking statistics that over 7,000 children experience sudden cardiac arrest annually, but that when these events happen at schools equipped with AEDs, the affected students are seven times more likely to survive. Now that his health has been cleared, Hamlin says he’s excited to get back to the game and has joined the Bills’ offseason training program. “Being around my teammates, the camaraderie of the sport of football, you know, that's what makes this sport the best in the world,” Hamlin said.
Hybrid Eclipse: If you live in the South Pacific, you might’ve been treated to a rare hybrid eclipse this week. Solar eclipses occur anytime the moon is between the Earth and the sun, and this usually occurs in one of three ways. A partial eclipse is when the moon only partially blocks the sun. An annular eclipse is when the moon blocks the center of the sun and a “ring of fire” is visible around it. A total eclipse occurs when the moon’s position is just right to make it block out the entirety of the sun, with the sun’s usually-invisible corona appearing behind it. This week’s eclipse was a hybrid, meaning that all three types of eclipse occurred in different locations at different times of day. If you were on the wrong side of the world to view the eclipse, you haven’t missed your chance — on October 14, an annular eclipse will be visible across much of the Western Hemisphere, with the best views in a narrow band including Albuquerque, New Mexico and San Antonio, Texas
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