Conservative states kick off new fight to limit access to abortion pill mifepristone despite Supreme Court decision

Four months after the Supreme Court tossed out a high-profile challenge to the abortion drug mifepristone, and as abortion access is a major flashpoint in the presidential election, three conservative states are following through on a promise to bring the issue back to the forefront with a new lawsuit.

Four months after the Supreme Court tossed out a high-profile challenge to the abortion drug mifepristone, and as abortion access is a major flashpoint in the presidential election, three conservative states are following through on a promise to bring the issue back to the forefront with a new lawsuit. The states – Missouri, Kansas and Idaho – filed an amended suit in a federal court in Texas asking US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to rollback efforts the Food and Drug Administration has taken over the past eight years to ease access to the drug, such as allowing it to be dispensed through the mail. The suit may thrust the issue of mifepristone access back on track for Supreme Court review in the next presidential administration, once again threatening the widespread availability of the drug even in states where abortion is legal and at a time when roughly half of states have imposed severe restrictions on in-clinic abortions. “These dangerous drugs are now flooding states like Missouri and Idaho and sending women in these states to the emergency room,” the states argued in the new lawsuit. The claim that mifepristone is unsafe has been widely refuted by mainstream medical organizations. Medication abortions account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the US. The new lawsuit was filed Friday. In addition to the ability to dispense the drug through the mail, the states are also challenging the FDA’s approval of a generic version of the drug and the elimination of requirements for follow-up doctor visits and that prescribers be physicians.