This morning the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a challenge to the manner in which the Food and Drug Administration regulates mifepristone, a medication that is used to terminate pregnancies.
The biggest challenge for AHM, the group challenging the FDA, is demonstrating that federal courts have jurisdiction to hear its claims. AHM would like the FDA to regulate mifepristone more stringently, or prohibit its use altogether. In effect, AHM is arguing that the FDA needs to regulate someone else (in this case, mifepristone manufacturers and prescribers) more stringently than it has done. As always in standing cases, asking the courts to force the government to treat a third party differently can be a heavy lift.
AHM's standing claim is based on the argument that AHM's members are injured when women who take mifepristone face complications and seek assistance in emergency rooms. Having to observe and treat such complications causes a cognizable injury, AHM argues, because providing treatment in such cases makes doctors feel complicit in abortion, violates their conscience, and may even expose them to liability.
