People in abortion-friendly states like New York and New Jersey will continue to be able to access the abortion drug mifepristone after the U.S. Supreme Court decided on Thursday that abortion opponents didn’t have legal standing to challenge the FDA’s approval of the pill.
The court also could have rolled back recent Biden administration reforms that have made abortion pills accessible via telemedicine and pharmacies — an increasingly common option for New Yorkers — rather than requiring patients to get them in person at a clinic. But that access remains intact as well.
Access to mifepristone has been in legal limbo since 2022, when an anti-abortion group known as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine challenged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s long-standing approval for the pill, along with subsequent federal rules making it easier to access, in a case filed in Texas.
Now, the Supreme Court has ruled that the group lacked legal standing to sue over the FDA’s regulations on mifepristone because it failed to prove that it had suffered as a result of them.
Mifepristone is one of two pills typically used in medication abortions, which currently account for about two-thirds of abortions in the United States. If the Supreme Court had decided to restrict access to mifepristone, patients could have still used the second pill, known as misoprostol, which has FDA approval for other uses and can be prescribed off label. But using that pill alone is considered less effective than the two-pill regimen since it more frequently requires additional doses or follow-up appointments.
The mifepristone decision comes as New Yorkers’ options for accessing abortion medication are expanding. A growing number of online companies now prescribe the pills remotely, as does the city’s public hospital system. Walgreens began offering the pills at some locations in the city earlier this year.
Some New York doctors are also taking cover under a state law passed last year to prescribe abortion pills via telemedicine to patients in more restrictive states. Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling means they will be able to continue to do so without looking for new work-arounds.
The law also says New York won’t cooperate with other states’ efforts to prosecute health care providers who prescribe abortion pills across state lines.
Mayor Eric Adams has promoted New York City as a safe haven for people traveling from more restrictive states for abortions. He posted a link to the city’s online Abortion Access Hub on X on Thursday, along with a statement saying that “abortion care will always be available in New York City for anyone who needs it.”
Data from the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute shows nonresidents only accounted for 5% of the abortions provided in New York in 2023.
Local officials and abortion rights advocates celebrated the new Supreme Court ruling, while cautioning that access is still under attack in many states across the country. Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement the “callous attempt to ban medication abortion” should never have reached the nation’s highest court. But, she added, ”this fight is not over.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office argued against any restrictions on mifepristone in a brief in the Supreme Court case, said her office would “always do everything in my power” to protect abortion rights.
