The U.S. Supreme Court halted a ban and other restrictions on the abortion medication mifepristone Friday, keeping the nation’s most popular abortion method available for now, as an appeal of the nationwide ban on the pill plays out. The ban was issued earlier this month by the Trump-appointed, right-wing Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas, who ruled the FDA’s 23-year-old approval of the drug was invalid. Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas were the only justices to issue a public dissent in Friday’s ruling.
The case is still likely to end up in front of the Supreme Court after making its way through a lower appeals court, leading to mounting calls to restructure the nation’s highest court. On Friday, New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “The court has devolved into a highly politicized entity that is rapidly delegitimizing. Open discussion of checking the court’s abuse of power & defying Kacsmaryk possibly contributed to pause/consideration.” AOC and others had called on the federal government to defy the Texas judge’s order. Arguments in the challenge to the mifepristone ban are scheduled for May 17.