Supreme Court issues standard-procedure stay in FDA case

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Erin Hawley regarding an administrative stay the U.S. Supreme Court issued Friday in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration:

“The entry of a brief administrative stay is standard operating procedure whenever the Supreme Court is asked to consider an emergency request like this one. It gives the court sufficient time to consider the parties’ arguments before ruling. We look forward to explaining why the FDA has not met its heavy burden to pause the parts of the district court’s decision that restore the critical safeguards for women and girls that were unlawfully removed by the FDA.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled Wednesday to keep in place the portion of a federal district court’s order protecting the health and safety of women and girls by restoring critical safeguards to chemical abortion drugs while the lawsuit proceeds. The 5th Circuit’s order prohibits abortionists from sending chemical abortion drugs through the mail, which the FDA had been allowing since 2021 in direct violation of longstanding federal law. Additionally, in 2016, the FDA extended the permissible gestational age of the baby for which a girl or woman may take chemical abortion drugs—from seven weeks’ gestation to 10 weeks’ gestation. The 5th Circuit’s order moved that back to seven weeks’ gestation, protecting the mother from adverse complications that increase with gestational age, reinstated necessary doctor visits, and brought back the requirement that abortionists must check women for complications after their chemical abortions.

The U.S. Department of Justice and Danco Laboratories, the main purveyor of chemical abortion drugs, filed an emergency request Friday with the Supreme Court that asked it to temporarily halt the decision of the federal district court.

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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