Boxes of the drug mifepristone sit on a shelf on the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on March 16, 2022.

Allen G. Breed/AP

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Allen G. Breed/AP

Boxes of the drug mifepristone sit on a shelf on the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on March 16, 2022.

Allen G. Breed/AP

The Biden administration urged the Supreme Court on Friday to rethink a lower-court ruling that will dramatically restrict entry to the important thing abortion capsule, mifepristone.

In its petition obtained by NPR, the Justice Department argued that the abortion capsule is many ladies’s “best method” to terminate early pregnancies.

“The loss of access to mifepristone would be damaging for women and healthcare providers around the Nation,” the Justice Department wrote.

It comes hours after the producer of mifepristone, Danco Laboratories, filed a similar petition asking the courtroom to reverse that call.

Last month, the fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that mifepristone shouldn’t be prescribed previous seven weeks of being pregnant or through telemedicine. For the time being, the capsule has remained on the market in states the place abortion is authorized, in addition to through telemedicine or mail whereas the Supreme Court decides whether or not to listen to the case.

If the courtroom agrees to take up the case within the fall, mifepristone will doubtless stay out there below these situations till the courtroom reaches a call — in all probability someday in 2024, within the midst of a presidential election cycle.

But if the courtroom permits the fifth Circuit’s resolution to face, entry to the abortion capsule may very well be dramatically decreased nationwide. Such a call additionally would characterize an unprecedented weakening of the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to approve medicines.

“To the government’s knowledge, the decisions below mark the first time any court has restricted access to an FDA-approved drug based on disagreement with FDA’s expert judgment to assure that drug’s safe use—much less done so after those conditions had been in effect for years,” the Justice Department wrote.

Mifepristone, which is the primary of a two-pill routine, was accredited in 2000 by the FDA. Today, it accounts for greater than half of all abortions carried out within the U.S. It additionally generally used to deal with miscarriages.

Last 12 months, a coalition of anti-abortion rights teams filed a lawsuit in Texas arguing the FDA improperly accredited the abortion capsule. In May, a three-judge panel, two of whom had been appointed by former President Donald Trump and one who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, heard arguments within the case.

Abortion-rights opponents argue that the federal company ignored security dangers with the abortion capsule and later loosened laws, like lowering the variety of physician’s appointments wanted to obtain a prescription.

On Friday, the Justice Department argued that these claims had been speculative and false, including that the federal authorities didn’t discover proof to recommend that increasing entry to mifepristone elevated the variety of ladies who suffered from issues after taking the abortion capsule.

The dispute over mifepristone could be the primary main abortion-related case determined by the Supreme Court because it overturned Roe v. Wade final 12 months.