Supreme Court Allows Continued Access to Abortion Pills … For Now

Reproductive rights advocates breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday after the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit attempting to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone and telehealth abortion nationwide.

“While the Supreme Court did the bare minimum today, we know anti-abortion extremists aren’t stopping any time soon.”

The fall 2024 elections are critical to maintaining abortion pills access. The president appoints the head of the FDA, who controls the status of mifepristone. A Trump administration could rescind the FDA’s recent expansions of access to abortion pills or even try to withdraw mifepristone from the market altogether.

Project 2025: Republicans’ Plan to Ban Abortion Pills Nationwide

On March 26, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a lawsuit attempting to remove the abortion pill mifepristone from the U.S. market. Mifepristone is now used in approximately two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. While members of the Supreme Court appeared likely to dismiss the case, abortion opponents are working on several other fronts to achieve their goal of banning abortion pills nationwide or restricting access by eliminating telemedicine abortion.

A detailed policy agenda produced by Project 2025, a coalition of 90 right-wing organizations, calls on the next Republican president to direct the FDA to remove the abortion pill mifepristone from the market nationwide. 

Project 2025: The Right’s Dystopian Plan to Dismantle Civil Rights and What It Means for Women

Wealthy right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation has published a detailed plan for the next Republican president to use the executive branch of the federal government to attack the rights of women, LGBTQ people and the BIPOC community, by eliminating the agencies and offices responsible for enforcing civil rights laws and placing trained right-wing ideologues in staff positions throughout the federal government. 

To develop this plan, the Heritage Foundation organized a broad coalition of over 90 conservative organizations—a who’s-who of groups that have led attacks on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, gender studies, the Equal Rights Amendment and #MeToo initiatives.