Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Case Against Abortion Pill

Even Clarence Thomas was not swayed by a 5th Circuit judge's unhinged opinion comparing pregnant women to giraffes.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday that the case against the abortion pill, mifepristone, lacks standing. This means medication abortions, the safest and most common method of terminating a pregnancy in the first trimester, will still be legal for now via telemedicine prescriptions.

I was editing Jezebel when this case was winding its way through the courts, and I’ll never forget the Fifth Circuit opinion Susan Rinkunas wrote about for us at the time, wherein Trump-appointed federal judge James Ho tried to argue that the plaintiffs, a group of anti-abortion doctors in Texas, suffer “aesthetic injury” from not being able to look at unborn babies inside their patients. Much like a person would be upset if they went to Greenland to view polar bears in their national habitat and an oil company had ruined that experience for them.

From Ho’s unhinged opinion:

SCOTUS disagreed, ruling that the plaintiffs have not been able to show that they are actually harmed by the FDA approving abortion pills by mail. I think it’s safe to say that when you’ve lost even Clarence Thomas, as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just did, it’s a pretty clear sign that you’ve gone off the rails.

Of course, this is not remotely to be taken as a sign that the Supreme Court is becoming more “moderate” on abortion, nor does it shut down further cases against the abortion pill. Similar cases in Idaho, Missouri and Kansas are still chugging along, and the plaintiffs in those cases can try to do a better job showing that the plaintiffs are actually harmed by the availability of the abortion pill—even though it’s safer than penicillin. Alternatively, if Trump wins in November, he could revive the zombie Comstock Act, a dormant 1873 law that could ban the abortion pill entirely, and/or appoint a new FDA administrator who makes it as difficult as possible to get the abortion pill. Love this journey for us.

In other news…

• The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination and a bellwether for the broader Evangelical base, voted to oppose IVF at their annual meeting yesterday. This is a big deal, as Republican senators continue to insist, including in a strongly-worded statement today, that their party poses no threat to IVF

• Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are expected to block a bill today that actually would protect IVF access, once again

• Trump apparently told a group of House Republicans, “Nancy Pelosi’s daughter is a whacko. Her daughter told me if things were different Nancy and I would be perfect together. There’s an age difference though.” I suspect Pelosi’s daughter did not say that.