women's healthcare....

SCOTUS WATCH — Hearing its second blockbuster abortion case in three years, the Supreme Court today seemed unlikely to crack down on nationwide access to mifepristone, with a majority of justices sounding skeptical notes about the challengers’ standing and other aspects of the case. The latest from Alice Miranda Ollstein and Josh Gerstein

The arguments: Doctors who oppose abortion rights and the Alliance Defending Freedom seemed to have convinced only Justice SAMUEL ALITO that they had the grounds to sue over the FDA’s rules changes in recent years that increased access to the abortion drug. “Do you think the FDA is infallible?” Alito asked. He and Justice CLARENCE THOMAS both focused a lot on the 19th-century Comstock Act and whether it would prohibit such pills from being shipped through the mail. Several conservative justices also began by questioning the safety of the pills, a good sign for abortion opponents.

But Chief Justice JOHN ROBERTS, Justices NEIL GORSUCH and AMY CONEY BARRETT, and others ultimately leaned toward a potentially narrow ruling as they raised questions about standing. Gorsuch sounded disinclined to go too broad, calling the case “a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule.” And he criticized “a rash of universal injunctions” by lower courts. More from the NYT on the standing question

Justice KETANJI BROWN JACKSON worried about whether courts should be intervening in scientific decisions made by regulators. Experts — and even the WSJ editorial board yesterday — have warned that a decision against the FDA could upend the approval process for many drugs, as CNN’s Meg Tirrell and Tierney Sneed report. But legal conservative advocates saw this case as another great vehicle for the Supreme Court to further roll back the powers of the administrative state, NYT’s Adam Liptak and Abbie VanSickle note.

The step back: The stakes are high, given that a national crackdown on mifepristone could affect every state, even those where abortion access remains legal. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and many red states banned abortion, the use of mifepristone and misoprostol has skyrocketed to account for the majority of American abortions. A decision is expected in June.

Courtesy Politico

Looks like women's healthcare might survive this latest attack by our theocracy.