Abortion pill manufacturer asks Supreme Court to take up case, approve distribution

Danco Laboratories, a producer of the abortion pill mifepristone, asked the Supreme Court Friday to block a lower court’s order limiting its use and to take up the legal challenge over whether the drug can lawfully be distributed across the country.

Danco says it cannot lawfully distribute its drug after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week limited its use, cutting back on some of the regulations issued by the Food and Drug Administration in 2016.

The court said the drug could not be sent via the mail and could be used only up to seven weeks of pregnancy.

However, the Eastern District of Washington had issued a separate order in a different lawsuit over the drug, saying the FDA’s authorization of mifepristone is legal, green lighting the abortion pill’s production and distribution.

“The result is an untenable limbo, for Danco, for providers, for women and for health care systems all trying to navigate these uncharted waters,” the drug company argued in its filing.

The filing was addressed to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who oversees appeals from the 5th Circuit, which includes Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

The Justice Department is also expected to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in after the 5th Circuit’s decision issued late Wednesday.

The move limited a lower court ruling that said the FDA could not distribute the pill, which is used as the most common method of abortion in the U.S.

Mifepristone was approved by the FDA during the Clinton administration and is used with misoprostol to terminate a pregnancy.

Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, ruled last week the FDA could not continue to approve the pill in a case brought by pro-life advocates and physicians who argued women have had grave health consequences from using the pill.

Just before midnight Wednesday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed in its decision.

Of the three on the bench, Judge Kurt Engelhardt and Judge Andrew Oldham are Trump appointees. Judge Catharina Haynes, a George W. Bush appointee, said she would expedite the case for oral arguments but put the lower court block on hold entirely.