US Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Thursday that the Justice Department will ask the Supreme Court to intervene to overturn a federal judge’s ban on the abortion pill mifepristone as President Joe Biden’s administration tries to protect access to the drug, Reuters reported.

The administration will seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court to defend “FDA’s scientific conclusion and protect Americans’ access to safe and effective reproductive care,” Garland said in a statement.

Mifepristone, approved by the FDA in 2000, is used in combination with another drug called misoprostol for medical abortions, which account for more than half of all abortions in the United States. The FDA is the US agency that approves the safety of food and drugs.

Acting amid a challenge to mifepristone by several anti-abortion groups, conservative U.S. District Judge Matthew Kaczmarik of Amarillo, Texas, issued a preliminary injunction last Friday that places significant restrictions on the distribution of mifepristone while the lawsuit is pending.

The order provides for a mandatory in-person visit to the doctor to receive the pills and to limit their use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy, compared to the current 10 weeks.

An appeals court in New Orleans on Wednesday night denied the Justice Department’s request to overturn those restrictions, which effectively reinstate restrictions on the distribution of the pills that had been lifted since 2016.

However, the court agreed to strike down another part of Kaczmarik’s order, which would have taken the drug off the market, suspending its approval.

Approved for two decades

According to the Ministry of Justice, Kaczmarik’s order was supposed to take effect on Saturday.

More than two decades ago, the FDA approved the abortion pill “based on a comprehensive review of the available scientific evidence and determined that it is safe and effective for the indicated use of early medical termination of pregnancy,” the agency said.

Ten months after the Supreme Court’s historic decision that gave each US state the freedom to ban abortions within its borders, US District Judge Matthew Kaczmarik, known for his ultraconservative views, issued a ruling in the southern US state of Texas that should be implemented nationally.

However, at the same time, one of his colleagues in the state of Washington (Northwest) decided that the authorization to sell mifepristone (RU 486), used in combination with another pill, could not be withdrawn in the 17 Democratic states that appealed. him.

The Supreme Court, which was renewed by former Republican President Donald Trump, will now have to clarify the situation. (photo: Traci Hahn | Dreamstime.com)