Supreme Court stays Texas mifepristone order

The Supreme Court of the United States issued an administrative stay on a lower court order suspending the approval of mifepristone, the most popular abortifacient, until one minute to midnight April 19.

Mifepristone fully available nationwide – for a few days

Justice Samuel A. Alito, supervising Justice for the Fifth Judicial Circuit, issued the stay on Friday (April 14). Actually he issued two orders, one for each of two applications for stay. Danco Laboratories (the current rights holder) and the Food and Drug Administration each made a separate application.

On April 7, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas “stayed” the approval of mifepristone for abortifacient use. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary stay of Judge Kacsmaryk’s order, but only as to the original 2000 approval. They did so on statute-of-limitations grounds, which don’t apply either to:

• Changes in the approval, which the FDA issued in 2016, or to:
• The freedom to ship mifepristone and misoprolol, a prostaglandin analog, by mail.

Justice Alito, without comment, said the stay would apply until one minute to midnight Wednesday night. He also ordered any parties wishing to respond to the application to file their responses by noon Tuesday (April 18). All times are in Eastern Daylight Savings Time.

Reasons for the challenge

Challengers of the FDA approvals have alleged the FDA:

• Cut corners on the original approval process for mifepristone,
• Relaxed the requirements for its administration without scientific warrant, and
• Allowed the current rights holder to ship mifepristone through the mail, in violation of the Comstock Act.

(Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine et al. v. Food and Drug Administration et al. v. Danco Laboratories, case 2:22-cv-223.)

CNAV has made this editorial comment on the case, including the implications of allowing the use of mifepristone. This drug first exploded onto the American public consciousness in the last quarter of the last century. Originally it had no name, but only a lot number: Roussel-UCLAF Lot 486, or RU-486 for short. The French drug firm Roussel-UCLAF developed it, then signed away its patent rights to the Population Council. The latter is a John D. Rockefeller organization dedicated to depopulating the planet by attrition.

Update

On 19 April 2023, Justice Alito signed two more orders extending the stay to one minute before midnight Friday, 21 April. The Supreme Court holds Friday Morning Conference on that day. This suggests that the Court has scheduled Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine et al. v. FDA et al. for that conference.