The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously rejected a challenge to curtail access to the commonly-used abortion pill mifepristone, with the Justices finding that a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations had no legal basis to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication.
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00:00The Supreme Court unanimously preserved access to an abortion medication that was used in
00:05nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States last year.
00:10The court issued its first abortion decision since a majority of conservative justices
00:18overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago.
00:20The court was unanimous because, although abortion is the underlying issue in the case,
00:26the decision turned on the legal concept of standing, which is whether someone has the
00:31right to go into federal court at all.
00:34Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the court's decision in which he said that the doctors
00:38who challenged FDA decisions easing access to mifepristone did not have the legal right
00:44or standing to sue.
00:46Kavanaugh was, of course, in the majority of the court two years ago when it overturned
00:51Roe v. Wade, and today's decision said almost nothing about abortion and the right to an
00:56abortion.
00:57It was all about the law and the concept of legal standing.
01:01Abortion has been a very potent legal issue in the past two years.
01:06Democrats principally have run on it and intend to do so again.
01:11It's hard to know exactly what impact today's ruling will have, although the court has another
01:16abortion case that it's deciding and taking together.
01:20Those still may provide some reason for Democrats to continue running on the abortion issue.