The Supreme Court temporarily paused through at least Wednesday a court order that would have restricted a commonly used abortion drug nationwide in a brief order issued Friday afternoon.
The order, from Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., gives challengers to the 2000 Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug mifepristone until Tuesday at noon to respond.
A group of 253 lawmakers filed a brief in the Supreme Court case over the drug Friday, arguing the lower court ruling upset decades of approvals by the FDA and substituted a court’s judgment for the agency Congress put in charge of drug safety. The group includes 203 out of 213 Democratic House members and all members of the Senate Democratic Conference, except for Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.
