The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday extended a stay on limits to a federally approved abortion drug, giving the panel two more days to consider a case that could determine whether the widely used medication can remain on the market.
The stay, now in place until the end of Friday, was due to end at midnight amid an unprecedented case testing the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to approve and regulate drugs.
A Texas district court judge earlier this month ordered the pill, called mifepristone, off the market, arguing that the FDA acted hastily when it approved the medicine more than two decades ago. An appeals court last week said the pill could remain available, but barred providers from sending mifepristone through the mail.
The extended deadline comes hours after a generic maker of the drug, GenBioPro, sued the FDA to keep it on the market regardless of the impending decision.
The FDA, pharmaceutical companies, and many legal experts have condemned both decisions, saying they could have massive repercussions for any FDA-approved product that activists deem controversial.
While there is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade last year, the mifepristone decision could split justices who argued in that decision that abortion policy should be decided by voters and not the courts.
“The nine unelected Members of this Court do not possess the constitutional authority to override the democratic process and to decree either a pro-life or a pro-choice abortion policy for all 330 million people in the United States,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion at the time.
