It concerned the drug mifepristone, which is used for more than half of all abortions in the United States. The pill is used in combination with misoprostol to induce a miscarriage.
The Justice Department and the manufacturer of the drug had filed an urgent request to intervene after the Texas ruling, which had meant that distribution of the abortion pill would have been suspended in the short term. In that case, the pill might have been unavailable for months pending lawsuits.
Conservative Chief Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said Friday that they disagreed with the Court’s ruling.
After the decision, US President Joe Biden promised to continue to fight “against political attacks on women’s health”. Family planning organization Planned Parenthood welcomed the “good news” on Friday. This is good news, but the facts remain the same: access to mifepristone should never have been compromised.