Appeals court backs abortion pill restrictions; DOJ says Supreme Court appeal planned

A U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that access to the abortion pill mifepristone will remain in place but must be restricted, ordering a ban on telemedicine prescriptions and shipments of the drug by mail.

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The ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a Texas judge’s ruling that revoked the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of mifepristone and would have pulled the drug from the market.

However, because the Supreme Court is set to take up the case, nothing about access to the drug will be changed by the ruling.

Mifepristone is one of two drugs taken when a woman is having a medication abortion. It is the first drug taken and it blocks a hormone that allows a pregnancy to develop. According to the FDA, it can be safely used up to the first 70 days (10 weeks) of pregnancy.

Misoprostol is the second drug taken in the regime. It is taken 24–48 hours after mifepristone, and it is designed to empty the uterus by causing cramping and bleeding, similar to an early miscarriage.

Wednesday’s ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by four anti-abortion groups headed by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and four anti-abortion doctors who filed suit last November. The suit claims that the FDA used an improper process when it approved mifepristone.

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled in April that the FDA’s approval of mifepristone in 2000 was invalid.

In addition, Kacsmaryk blocked any subsequent FDA decisions that expanded the use of mifepristone in terminating pregnancies in their first weeks.

A second ruling only hours later by Judge Thomas Rice of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington blocked the FDA from restricting the availability of mifepristone in the states that filed the lawsuit before that court.

State attorneys general in 17 states asked Rice to remove certain restrictions — known as REMS or Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy — that the FDA imposed on mifepristone. Those restrictions had been on mifepristone since the drug was approved for use.

In Wednesday’s ruling, a restriction on telemedicine prescriptions and drugs delivered by mail would have made it unavailable in some states with abortion bans.

The Justice Department said it would appeal Wednesday’s ruling. A department spokesperson told NBC News that it “strongly disagrees” with the ruling and “will be seeking Supreme Court review of that decision.”