The Supreme Court granted Friday evening the Biden administration’s request for a stay of a lower court ruling that threatened to interfere with distribution of mifepristone, a pharmaceutical commonly used to terminate pregnancy.
No statement by the seven justices who apparently voted to grant the stay was released. Two justices – Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – dissented from the order.
The stay on the order issued by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Amarillo, Tex. on April 7 will continue until the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decides a pending appeal and the justices determine whether to grant certiorari in the event a petition is filed.
Kacsmaryk, appointed to the bench by former president Donald J. Trump in 2017, ruled that the Food and Drug Administration had unlawfully failed to consider evidence that mifepristone may pose a danger to patients. Scientists and physicians condemned the ruling and implored the Supreme Court to step in.
“The agency’s review of mifepristone in 2000 was thorough and fair,” wrote Science magazine in a rare editorial published on April 13. “The FDA’s expertise and diligence, however, barely seemed to matter to Kacsmaryk in his unprecedented decision last week.”
Dr. Jack Resneck, the president of the American Medical Association, castigated Kacsmaryk’s decision in even more harsh terms.
“The unprecedented judicial ruling issued April 7 by a federal district court judge in Texas to suspend the use of mifepristone—an extremely safe and effective drug backed by hundreds of studies and used by millions of women—favors ideology and pseudoscience over facts, harms patients, interferes with the patient-physician relationship and jeopardizes public health nationwide,” Resneck said in a statement released April 12.
President Biden likewise minced no words in his criticism of Kacsmaryk’s decision.
“If this ruling were to stand, then there will be virtually no prescription, approved by the FDA, that would be safe from these kinds of political, ideological attacks,” Biden said on April 7.
This evening Biden made clear that his administration remains intent on preventing any lessening of FDA’s authority to approve medications.
“I continue to stand by FDA’s evidence-based approval of mifepristone, and my Administration will continue to defend FDA’s independent, expert authority to review, approve, and regulate a wide range of prescription drugs,” he said.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely rejected an effort to stay Kacsmaryk’s order. That court’s April 13 decision on the Department of Justice’s stay request opened the door to preventing mail delivery of mifepristone and would have forced FDA to limit access to the drug to the first seven weeks of pregnancy, rather than during the first ten weeks as is now authorized.
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