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A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that access to the abortion pill mifepristone should be restricted, although the pill will remain widely available for now as the case moves through the appeals process.
The opinion from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said that mifepristone should remain available but with increased restrictions, effectively barring patients from accessing the pill by mail.
In loosening restrictions on mifepristone access over the years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration “failed to address several important concerns about whether the drug would be safe for the women who use it,” Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in the opinion, adding that the FDA failed to gather evidence showing that mifepristone could be used safely without being prescribed and dispensed in person.
Reproductive-rights advocates say that decades of research have proven that medication abortion is safe and does not have to be done in a clinical setting. Medication abortions account for more than half of total U.S. abortions.
“There is scientific consensus on the exemplary safety and efficacy of mifepristone,” the Center for Reproductive Rights, a legal advocacy group, said in a tweet Wednesday, adding that “unscientific restrictions will harm millions of the most vulnerable pregnant people in the U.S.”
The case is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Wednesday’s ruling will not take immediate effect, given a Supreme Court ruling this spring maintaining the status quo while the case proceeds.
The case originated with anti-abortion advocacy groups and doctors who challenged the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, which is part of a two-drug regimen used in nearly all medication abortions in the U.S. A Texas district court judge in April suspended mifepristone’s approval. The Biden administration then appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which partially blocked the lower court’s decision but left in place parts of the ruling overturning FDA changes that expanded access to the drug.
The ruling comes more than a year after the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which allowed states to set their own abortion policies and intensified scrutiny of medication abortion.
Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho wrote a partial dissent to Wednesday’s ruling, saying the FDA’s initial 2000 approval of mifepristone “violates the agency’s own rules and thus must be set aside” as well.
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