Supreme Court maintains FDA approval of mifepristone...for now.

This happened last week but I was preoccupied with some personal issues and never got around to posting about it. The news is widespread by now but important enough that I figured I should at least give it a mention anyway.

Via the New York Times a few days ago:

The Supreme Court issued a decision on Friday evening that maintained the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a commonly used abortion pill while an appeal moves forward, the latest development in a fast-moving legal battle that followed a lower court’s ruling that ordered the drug pulled off the market.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. had paused the lower court’s ruling on the pill, mifepristone, but that freeze had been set to expire at midnight. The justices issued their decision about five hours before the deadline.

When the justices overturned Roe v. Wade in June, the conservative majority said that the legislative branch, not the courts, should make decisions on abortion policy. But the issue quickly made its way back to the Supreme Court, in a case that may have wide-ranging consequences even in states where abortion is legal, as well as for the F.D.A.’s regulatory authority over other drugs.

As for what this means going forward, it's a much bigger deal than this particular medication (although even the final ruling on this specific drug will be massively consequential for millions of women):

The case could also pave the way for all sorts of challenges to the F.D.A.’s approval of medications. Legal experts said medical providers anywhere in the country might be enabled to challenge government policy that might affect a patient, as did the anti-abortion medical coalition that filed the original lawsuit against the pill. And leaders of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries have filed briefs saying that the case could undermine their businesses by destroying their ability to rely on a single national standard for their products.