Former FDA commissioners urge SCOTUS to preserve agency’s regulations of abortion pill

A group of for­mer top FDA of­fi­cials are ask­ing the Supreme Court to up­hold the agency’s reg­u­la­tion of the abor­tion pill mifepri­s­tone, ac­cord­ing to an am­i­cus brief filed in the case on Thurs­day.

The brief is au­thored by for­mer FDA com­mis­sion­ers David Kessler, Jane Hen­ney, Mar­garet Ham­burg, and for­mer act­ing com­mis­sion­ers Michael Fried­man, Joshua Sharf­stein, Stephen Os­troff and Nor­man Sharp­less.

The core is­sue at stake is whether the Supreme Court will up­hold the Fifth Cir­cuit’s de­ci­sion to re­verse the FDA’s con­di­tions for pre­scrib­ing mifepri­s­tone, which the agency has tweaked over the years to al­low the pill to be pre­scribed on­line, dis­pensed in phar­ma­cies and dis­trib­uted to pa­tients by mail. Mifepri­s­tone is com­mon­ly used along­side miso­pros­tol to end a preg­nan­cy.

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