So a technicality, lack of standing rather than rejecting it on merit. Hard to call it a resounding win, but it’s something.
Actually this case was a two-pronged attack; first on mifepristone, but more broadly about whether federal agencies have the authority to conduct regulatory actions without express and specific direction and permission from Congress.
Republicans have been attacking this fundamental function of the Executive branch for a while now, as a way to kill regulations. They know that Congress is deadlocked over many issues and that it will never or rarely pass highly specific and technical regulations (e.g. environmental regulations, water quality standards, manufacturing safety regulations, communications rules, etc), and when it rarely does it takes years to do so, which will allow companies to do all sorts of horrible shit in the meantime.
This case was brought on the grounds that the FDA didn’t have the authority to authorize mifepristone without express congressional direction.
This was a huge relief, because much more than just access to contraceptives was on the table.
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The nine justices ruled that abortion opponents lacked the legal right to sue over the federal Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication, mifepristone, and the FDA’s subsequent actions to ease access to it.
The plaintiffs in the mifepristone case, anti-abortion doctors and their organizations, argued in court papers that the FDA’s decisions in 2016 and 2021 to relax restrictions on getting the drug were unreasonable and “jeopardize women’s health across the nation.”
Kavanaugh acknowledged what he described as the opponents’ “sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to elective abortion and to FDA’s relaxed regulation of mifepristone.”
In the end, Kavanaugh wrote, the anti-abortion doctors went to the wrong forum and should instead direct their energies to persuading lawmakers and regulators to make changes.
Those comments pointed to the stakes of the 2024 election and the possibility that an FDA commissioner appointed by Republican Donald Trump, if he wins the White House, could consider tightening access to mifepristone.
Abortion opponents initially won a sweeping ruling nearly a year ago from U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump nominee in Texas, which would have revoked the drug’s approval entirely.
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