It is used in more than half of abortions in the United States and is the subject of an intense legal battle. The American Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it would take up the question of the abortion pill. The high court will have to rule on a decision by an appeals court having reinstated restrictions on the use of the abortion pill, which could apply to all American states, but which is currently suspended.
The Supreme Court, an institution which decides major social debates in the United States, should study the case in the coming months to render a decision by the end of its annual session, in June 2024. This will be the most important intervention of the Court, currently with a conservative majority, on the question of abortion since it annulled the constitutional guarantee of abortion in June 2022, causing an earthquake in the country.
And the White House was quick to react. “President Biden and the vice president remain firmly committed to defending women’s access to reproductive care,” his spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement on Wednesday.
If the decision of the court of appeal, in August in New Orleans, was confirmed, this would result in particular in a return to a maximum limit of seven weeks of pregnancy instead of ten to benefit from an abortion, a ban of sending the abortion pill by post and the reinstatement of the obligation to prescribe exclusively by a doctor.
Access to mifepristone
The question is that of access to mifepristone (RU 486) which, combined with another pill, has been used by 5.6 million women since its approval by the United States Medicines Agency (FDA) in 2000. The legal headache began when a federal judge in Texas, known for his Christian faith, his ultra-conservative positions and appointed by Donald Trump, withdrew the marketing authorization for mifepristone on April 7 after having been seized by anti-abortion activists.
Despite scientific consensus, he considered that it presented risks to women’s health.
The federal appeals court in New Orleans then allowed the abortion pill to remain authorized, but by limiting the access facilities granted by the FDA over the years. It is this decision, for the moment suspended, which will be studied in depth by the nine wise men in Washington, at the request of the federal government of Democrat Joe Biden and the manufacturer of the pill, the Danco laboratory.
The Roe v. Wade
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority following the appointments made under the presidency of Donald Trump, overturned its Roe v. Wade, who since 1973 had guaranteed the right of American women to have an abortion, and gave each state the freedom to legislate on the matter. Since then, the country has been fractured between the twenty or so states that have banned or strictly restricted access to abortion, mainly located in the south and center of the country, and those on the coasts that have adopted new guarantees.
At the beginning of the week, a Texan with a risky pregnancy had to leave Texas, where abortions are prohibited with rare exceptions, to be able to have an abortion, because her fetus is affected by a chromosomal anomaly associated with serious malformations. The fact that she had to flee her state to “receive the care she needs” is “scandalous”, judged Joe Biden on Tuesday.
More than half of abortions (53%) in the United States in 2020 were medical, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a specialist on the subject. Abortions using mifepristone and misoprostol within the authorized time frame are very safe and effective, all experts insist.
In the United States, this method has been authorized by the American Medicines Agency (FDA) since 2000.