Supreme Court Allows Use of Abortion Pill

Woman with a pill and water | Image by fizkes/shutterstock

5:45 p.m. Friday

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that the abortion drug mifepristone can still be used, pending review by lower courts and a possible full review by the high court later.

Mifepristone has been approved for use since 2000 and is commonly used alongside another drug called misoprostol and accounts for the majority of abortions in the United States.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissented.

2 p.m. Friday

The Supreme Court was expected to announce Friday whether access to the abortion pill mifepristone would remain legal while a challenge to its approval continues.

Justices were weighing a lower-court decision that would restrict the pill, which is the most common abortion method in the U.S.

The decision was supposed to come Wednesday. An order from Justice Samuel Alito gave justices two more days to consider it.

The case is the first to reach the Supreme Court since it ruled on Roe v. Wade in 2022. The court’s ruling allowed states to ban abortion outright.