Women in the US will continue to have access for the present to a key drug used in medication abortions following a ruling by the country’s top court.
The US supreme court on Friday evening in a split decision, also rejected restrictions on the use of mifepristone which had been put in place by a lower court.
Two conservative justices of the supreme court Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissented.
The supreme court move means existing arrangements regarding the use of mifepristone in medication abortions remain in place for the moment in the US.
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However, further legal action regarding the drug will continue and the issue could come back to the supreme court in the future.
But for the moment at least the supreme court interventions represent a victory for the Biden administration which had promised to fight on behalf of women’s reproductive health rights.
Abortion has become a hugely important political issue in the US following the highly controversial decision by the supreme court last year to eliminate a federal constitutional right to a termination.
Mr Biden’s Democratic Party campaigned strongly on the abortion issue after the landmark 50-year-old Roe V Wade ruling was overturned by the supreme court. Unhappiness at moves by Republicans to curtail access to abortion is attributed by many to the Democrats performing better than expected in the midterm elections last November.
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The White House said on Friday that the “stakes could not be higher for women across the United States”.
The future use of mifepristone was called into question earlier this month after a federal judge in Texas suspended the approval for the drug which had been granted about 20 years ago by the federal regulator for medicines in the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
An appeals court in the US subsequently pulled back on part of the decision of the judge in Texas and allowed the approval by the FDA to mifepristone to stand.
However, the appeal court-imposed restrictions on the drug, limiting its use to seven weeks of pregnancy instead of the current 10-week limit, and banning delivery of the pill by mail.
The original case in Texas had been brought by a group known as the Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of four anti-abortion medical organisations.
US president Joe Biden said on Friday night that as a result of the supreme court stay, “mifepristone remains available and approved for safe and effective use while we continue this fight in the courts”.
“I continue to stand by FDA’s evidence-based approval of mifepristone, and my administration will continue to defend FDA’s independent, expert authority to review, approve, and regulate a wide range of prescription drugs.”
The president said the decision of the lower court, if implemented, “would have undermined FDA’s medical judgment and put women’s health at risk”.
However, he urged voters in the US to elect politicians who would pass legislation to restore protections for abortion rights across the county which were previously available under the Roe V Wade ruling.
Following the decision by the current conservative supreme court in Washington to overturn the Roe V Wade precedent last year, it was left up to politicians in individual states to decide on abortion rights in their own areas.
The case regarding mifepristone will now go back to the appeal court but could ultimately end up back before the supreme court.
Mifepristone is the first of a two-drug regimen that is used to terminate a pregnancy of up to 10 weeks’ gestation. More than half of abortions in the US are medication abortions.
In their case the medical associations and doctors contended the FDA made an error in determining the safety and effectiveness of the drug and claimed it exceeded its regulatory authority in allowing its use.