Closing summary
The supreme court heard arguments in a case brought by a conservative group that sought to restrict access to abortion medication mifepristone. The justices seemed skeptical of claims that the drug should be restricted due to its health risks and the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decisions, after an attorney representing the drug’s manufacturer warned that a court ruling against it could have ripple effects across the entire pharmaceutical industry. Meanwhile, an attorney for the Biden administration said cutting off access would “inflict grave harm on women across the nation”. By the hearing’s end, only conservative justice Samuel Alito sounded open to the challenge, and a ruling in the case is expected this summer.
Here’s what else happened today:
Donald Trump is reportedly prohibited from attacking witnesses, prosecutors or jurors in his trial on hush money-related charges under a gag order handed down by judge Juan Merchan.
Robert F Kennedy Jr announced attorney and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate in an event in Oakland, California.
Joe Biden said the federal government will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port of Baltimore and rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early this morning after being struck by a container ship.
Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a force in the conservative legal world, reached a deal with prosecutors to resolve securities fraud charges.
A federal appeals judge who ruled against mifepristone last year has ties to one of the groups trying to keep it off the market.
Donald Trump-supporting Super Pac Make America Great Again Inc unleashed an attack on Robert F Kennedy Jr, after he announces Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.
“Robert F Kennedy Jr is a far-left radical that supports reparations, backs the Green New Deal, and wants to ban fracking. It’s no surprise he would pick a Biden donor leftist as his running mate,” said spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer.
Third party candidates with dedicated followings can add an element of unpredictability to tight presidential races – just ask Al Gore. But despite Team Trump’s vitriol, polls have shown Kennedy may sap support from Biden in states where he’s on the ballot.
The Democratic National Committee has gone on the attack against Kennedy’s campaign, including by filing a complaint accusing him of improperly coordinating with a political action committee:
Updated
Robert F Kennedy Jr announces Nicole Shanahan as running mate in presidential campaign
Independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has announced attorney and wealthy philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.
He made the announcement in Oakland, California, at an event attended by hundreds of supporters, as well as protesters outraged by his opposition to vaccines.
Wendy Bloom, a registered nurse who has worked in pediatric cancer units for 37 years, said she disagrees with many of Kennedy’s ideas, and was particularly enraged by his opposition to vaccines.
“Besides being anti-vaccines, he’s not pro-science, and anti-research,” she said. She also dismissed the choice of Shanahan as a running mate.
“His choice of VP tells us everything we need to know,” Bloom said. “She has no experience. She’s just a wealthy individual can help raise money. Voters deserve someone with experience.”
Kennedy supporter Marilyn Chin, 71, said she voted Democrat for most of her life, but is now supporting Kennedy.
“Get out of the duopoly,” she said. “Don’t vote Republican, don’t vote Democrat, start looking for something else.”
In seeking a gag order against Donald Trump, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office argued the former president had a “longstanding history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him”, the New York Times reports.
Judge Juan Merchan agreed, writing in the order that, “his statements were threatening, inflammatory, denigrating.”
The Times notes that earlier today, Trump called his former fixer Michael Cohen “death”, in a post on Truth Social – just the sort of statement that Merchan’s gag order is meant to prohibit.
Updated
The day so far
The supreme court heard arguments in a case that sought to restrict access to abortion medication mifepristone, and seemed skeptical of claims that the drug should be restricted due to its risks and the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decisions. An attorney representing the drug’s manufacturer warned that a court ruling against the drug could have ripple effects across the entire pharmaceutical industry, while an attorney for the Biden administration said cutting off access would “inflict grave harm on women across the nation”. By the hearing’s end, only conservative justice Samuel Alito sounded open to the challenge, and a ruling in the case is expected this summer.
Here’s what else happened today:
Joe Biden said the federal government will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port of Baltimore and rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early this morning after being struck by a container ship.
Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a force in the conservative legal world, reached a deal with prosecutors to resolve securities fraud charges.
A federal appeals judge who ruled against mifepristone last year has ties to one of the groups trying to keep it off the market.
Updated
New York judge imposes gag order in Trump hush money case - report
The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case has imposed a gag order that forbids him to attack witnesses, prosecutors or jurors involved in the criminal trial that’s due to begin next month, the New York Times has just reported.
The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, asked the judge, Juan Merchan, to impose the order.
The trial in New York is scheduled to begin on 15 April.
More details soon.
Updated
Liz Cheney, the Donald Trump foe who ended up being forced out of Congress due to her opposition to the former president, also described NBC’s elevation of McDaniel as a danger, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:
The Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “enabled criminality and depravity” in her support for Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former congresswoman Liz Cheney said as controversy swirled over McDaniel’s media role.
“Ronna facilitated Trump’s corrupt fake elector plot and his effort to pressure Michigan officials not to certify the legitimate election outcome,” Cheney, a Republican who was vice-chair of the House January 6 committee, wrote on social media.
“She spread his lies and called January 6 ‘legitimate political discourse’. That’s not ‘taking one for the team’. It’s enabling criminality and depravity.”
McDaniel rose in Republican politics as a member of the powerful Romney family before reportedly dropping the name at Trump’s behest and becoming RNC chair in 2017.
In February 2022, the RNC said Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the other anti-Trump Republican on the committee that investigated the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, were engaged in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”.
Cheney lost her seat in Congress that year. Kinzinger chose to retire. McDaniel was eased out of the RNC last month, to be replaced in part by Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law.
Updated
The White House said that meetings over the last two days between the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, have been “productive”.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday canceled a high-level delegation from Israel to the White House to discuss Rafah, with the visit meant to take place today. He withdrew his agreement for talks after the US abstained from – rather than vetoed – a UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Gallant was already in Washington for longer-planned talks at a lower level. Meanwhile, in the Middle East earlier today, Israel recalled its negotiators from Doha, in Qatar, after deeming mediated talks on a Gaza truce “at a dead end” due to demands by Hamas, Reuters reported earlier, citing an Israeli official.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said to reporters board Air Force One moments ago: “We are committed to supporting Israel in its fight against Hamas … We cannot expect Israel to live under active threat.” She added that it was critical for Israel to do “whatever is possible” to protect civilians in Rafah.
There, about 1.7 million Palestinians are trapped under Israeli siege and suffering bombardment and food deprivation as international talks about a ceasefire and access for more aid founder.
Aid agencies and international bodies including United Nations officials have said that people stranded further north in Gaza are on the brink of famine.
Updated
The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has just been speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, on the way to Raleigh, North Carolina.
Joe Biden and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, are holding a joint event there to talk about healthcare.
Reporters were firing off their questions, in a short gaggle on a short flight. Jean-Pierre is confirming the US president’s position is he will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge.
She’s being asked about the state of US infrastructure but emphasizes that although the government pledges to work with Congress for funding to rebuild the bridge, the search and rescue effort that’s still under way in Baltimore is the main focus.
Updated
Here’s what Yale University historian Timothy Snyder had to say about the danger of NBC News hiring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, as told by the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:
The former Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “tried to disassemble our democracy” by supporting Donald Trump’s electoral fraud lies and should not be given such a media role, a leading historian said amid uproar over the appointment.
“What NBC has done is they’ve invited into what should be a normal framework someone who doesn’t believe that framework should exist at all,” Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor and author of On Tyranny, told MSNBC, part of the network now employing McDaniel.
“What NBC has done of its own volition is bring into a very important conversation about democracy, one which is going to take place for the next seven months or so, someone who … tried to disassemble our democracy. Who personally took part in an attempt to undo the American system.”
NBC announced the hire on Friday. Carrie Budoff Brown, the senior vice-president for politics, said McDaniel would contribute analysis “across all NBC News platforms”.
On Sunday, McDaniel told Meet the Press Joe Biden won the 2020 election “fair and square”, adding that she did “not think violence should be in our political discourse”.
NBC News will cut ties with former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel after outcry – report
NBC News will drop former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel after an outcry from its top talent over her promotion of Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election, Puck reports:
SCOOP @PuckNews: NBC NEWS plans to drop ex RNC-chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor following on-air revolt from NBC/MSNBC talent. Execs are deliberating over details; announcement pending. Meanwhile, McDaniel is seeking legal representation.
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) March 26, 2024
Full details, scoops &…
McDaniel’s hiring by the network attracted criticism from former lawmakers and historians, who argued they were elevating a voice who had helped Trump attack US democracy. On Sunday, McDaniel acknowledged that the 2020 election had not been stolen, though maintained it was acceptable to say there were “problems” with the vote:
Updated
Joe Biden did not say when he expected the Francis Scott Key Bridge to be rebuilt or, more crucially for the nation’s economy, the port of Baltimore to be able to resume operations.
The president also gave no update on the six people still missing from the collapse, but said the search and rescue operation to find them is a “top priority”.
For the latest on this developing story, follow our live blog:
Updated
Biden says government will 'move heaven and earth' to rebuild collapsed Baltimore bridge, reopen port
Joe Biden says he has instructed the federal government to “move heaven and earth” to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and reopen its economically vital port.
The government will also cover the cost of the reconstruction, the president added in a speech from the White House.
“I’m directing my team to move heaven and earth to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as humanly possible,” Biden said.
“We’re going to work with our partners in Congress to make sure the state gets the support it needs. It’s my intention that federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect the Congress to support my effort. It’s gonna take some time, and people of Baltimore can count on us so to stick with them at every step of the way till the port is reopened and the bridge is rebuilt.”
The port is currently closed due to the span’s collapse, which occurred early this morning after the cargo ship Dali collided with it. The president noted that 15,000 workers rely on the its operations, and “we’re gonna do everything we can to protect those jobs and help those workers”.
Updated
As we wait for Joe Biden to begin his speech on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, here are some scenes from earlier today in Baltimore:
Updated
The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, reaches deal to resolve securities fraud charges
Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a key player in the world of conservative legal theory, has reached a deal with special prosecutors to resolve longstanding securities fraud charges against him, the Associated Press reports.
However, Paxton is still under investigation by federal prosecutors, though it’s unclear if they will bring charges.
Here’s the latest on this breaking story, from the AP:
Prosecutors on Tuesday announced an agreement with the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, that would ultimately dismiss securities fraud charges he has been facing for nearly a decade.
Under the 18-month, pre-trial agreement, the special prosecutors in the case would drop three felony counts against Paxton. As part of the deal, Paxton must pay full restitution to victims – roughly $300,000 – and must also complete 100 hours of community service as well as 15 hours of legal ethics education.
The resolution lets Paxton avoid a trial, which had been set to begin in less than three weeks on 15 April. Paxton was first indicted in 2015 after being accused of duping investors in a tech startup near Dallas before he was elected attorney general.
If he had been convicted at trial, Paxton could have been sentenced to life in prison.
The agreement with prosecutors, which lets Paxton remain in his elected position and doesn’t affect his law license, is another huge legal and political victory for one of the nation’s most visible Republican state attorneys general. The end of the case comes six months after Paxton was acquitted of corruption charges in an impeachment trial in the Texas senate.
Updated
Biden to address Baltimore bridge collapse in White House speech
The White House just announced that Joe Biden will at 12.30pm speak about the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which has left six people missing and threatens to cause long-term disruptions to one of the biggest ports on the east coast.
We’ll cover the remarks live on this blog. For more on the disaster, follow our separate live blog:
Updated
The just-concluded supreme court arguments over mifepristone were a deep dive into the technicalities of how the US government approves and regulates medication. The Guardian’s Carter Sherman has taken a close look at what the case entails, and when the nation’s highest court may rule:
Less than two years after it overturned Roe v Wade and ended the national right to abortion, the US supreme court is back on the frontlines of the American abortion wars.
On Tuesday, the court will hear oral arguments in one of the most highly watched cases of the session, which could dramatically curtail access to mifepristone, a drug typically used in medication abortions. The court is reviewing decisions made by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to loosen restrictions on the drug, such as allowing non-physicians to prescribe it, as well as letting providers prescribe it through telehealth rather than in-person appointments.
Any decision to restrict mifepristone will affect everyone in the US, not only those who live in the 16 states that have banned nearly all abortions. This case could also have wide-ranging consequences for the FDA’s future decision-making.
A decision from the nation’s highest court in the case will probably arrive by summer 2024.
Supreme court appears skeptical of challenge to abortion pill as oral arguments conclude
The supreme court has just wrapped up more than an hour and a half of oral arguments in the case challenging access to the abortion pill mifepristone.
The last third of the hearing was dominated by the justices, liberal and conservative alike, peppering anti-abortion attorney Erin Hawley with questions that signaled skepticism with her case. Neal Katyal, who argued before the court under Barack Obama, said that based on their inquiries, all the justices appear ready to turn down the challenge, perhaps with the exception of Samuel Alito:
Justice Kagan really pierces the probabilistic nature of this. Ms. Hawley is doing a good job with what she has to work with, but it's not nearly enough I would think. The Court appears very very skeptical about this theory of a lawsuit.
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) March 26, 2024
Justice Alito now tries to shore up standing, pointing to census case which he says was probabilistic. Ms. Hawley agrees. This is the only standing point I've heard so far that is helpful to the abortion drug challengers.
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) March 26, 2024
My thread covering the abortion drug argument that my fabulous law partner Jess Ellsworth is arguing is below. The argument is close to over and right now it appears there is a wide consensus on the Court that the challenge to the drug will fail. Only Justice Alito appeared to… https://t.co/PSs4wYP65y
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) March 26, 2024
Updated
The arguments have repeatedly returned to the question of emergency abortions and the role of a federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or Emtala, which broadly requires hospitals to stabilize patients who are facing medical emergencies rather than turning them away.
Erin Hawley, a lawyer representing the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, has said that in emergency situations, the anti-abortion doctors she represents do not have the time or ability to turn down cases that involve complications from abortions -even though working on such a case could run counter to their objections to abortion. (More than 100 studies have concluded that mifepristone is a safe and effective way to end a pregnancy.)
Solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar, however, has contended that hospitals prepare and protect doctors from being forced to work on cases to which they object. “The federal government has never taken the position that Emtala would override an individual doctor’s conscience objections,” she said.
As for Emtala, the court will turn to that law next month, when the justices consider if it requires doctors to perform emergency abortions. Oral arguments are set for 24 April.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson gave Danco’s lawyer Jessica Ellsworth some air to explain why pharmaceutical companies have lined up in opposition to undermining the FDA’s authority.
“Do you have concerns about judges parsing medical and scientific studies?” Jackson asked.
Ellsworth, the lawyer for the manufacturer of mifepristone, said pharmaceutical companies have “significant concerns” and rely on the “FDA’s gold standard review process”.
“The reality is … you have a district court that, among other things, relied on one study that was an analysis of anonymous blog posts,” said Ellsworth. Other studies “have since been retracted for lack of scientific rigor and misleading data”.
“Precisely because judges are not experts in statistics and the methodologies used for studies in clinical trials – that is why FDA has many hundreds of pages of analysis in the record of what the scientific data showed, and courts are just not in a position to parse and second-guess” that, she said.
Updated
Lawyer for anti-abortion group argues FDA downplayed danger of mifepristone
Now arguing before the court is Erin Hawley, who represents the anti-abortion Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. In her opening arguments to the justices, she characterized mifepristone as posing risks that the FDA has not done enough to manage.
“The lower court’s decision merely restored longstanding and crucial protections under which millions of women used abortion drugs,” she said, referring to earlier rulings in the case. “That respondent doctors will be forced to manage abortion drug harm is not a bug in FDA system, but part of its very design.”
Hawley is married to Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a longtime abortion foe:
Updated
Justice Samuel Alito’s question about complications from mifepristone goes to the heart of why the medical and pharmaceutical industry considers it so scary for judges to decide questions of science.
Alito asked whether the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shouldn’t have provided a more extensive explanation of why telehealth prescribing of mifepristone could lead to an increase in emergency room visits.
“The increase in ER visits is just of no consequence? It doesn’t even merit some comment?” Alito asked Elizabeth Prelogar, the US solicitor general.
Defending the FDA, Prelogar said: “It fully explained its decision-making and I think it falls well within the realm of reasonableness.” To researchers, the FDA comment in question made an obvious point: an increase in emergency room visits does not denote greater risk for adverse events. An emergency room visit is a proxy measure – in other words, it might indicate the possibility of adverse events, but it may also indicate only an increase in women seeking reassurance, particularly in connection with a drug like mifepristone, which induces bleeding.
This is exactly the kind of complicated parsing of science that the FDA considers every day when looking at studies on the safety and efficacy of drugs.
Updated
Ruling in favor of abortion foes would threaten 'virtually every drug approval', attorney for mifepristone maker warns
Up now before the supreme court is Jessica Ellsworth, an attorney for Danco Laboratories, which manufactures mifepristone.
She warned the justices that if they allowed anti-abortion doctors’ challenge to mifepristone to stand, it could have unpredictable ripple effects across the pharmaceutical industry:
Respondents’ view of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act is so inflexible it would upend not just mifepristone, but virtually every drug approval … FDA has made for decades.
Ellsworth argued that “respondents lack standing under every prong of the analysis”, and added that the FDA “exhaustively” studied the drug to ensure it’s safe.
Updated
Speaking of the Comstock Act, Mr Comstock himself turned up outside the court:
Mr. Comstock of the eponymous Comstock Act came back to “support my fellow brethren.” pic.twitter.com/lY2CwwLjKa
— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) March 26, 2024
That would be Anthony Comstock, the former US postal service inspector and 19th century anti-vice crusader. Outside of Washington DC, abortion foes have seized on the legislation bearing his name to attempt to get the procedure banned:
Updated
The conservative justice Samuel Alito also asked about the role of the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-obscenity law that bans the mailing of all abortion-related materials.
He suggested that the FDA should have considered the Comstock Act when it changed the rules around the availability of mifepristone, which can now be sent in the mail.
Before the overturning of Roe v Wade, the Comstock Act was long regarded as a relic that no longer applied in the modern world.
The Biden administration has issued guidance declaring that the Comstock Act only applies in situations where people intend to break the law. However, since Roe fell, anti-abortion activists have tried to argue that Comstock is good law and should block the mailing of at least abortion pills.
If the federal government enforced the Comstock Act, it would result in a de facto nationwide abortion ban, because abortion clinics rely so heavily on receiving equipment and other materials through the mail to perform abortions.
Updated
The liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor posed a hypothetical about mifepristone’s safety to Elizabeth Prelogar, the US solicitor general who is defending the government’s handling of the drug.
“Even if there is some increase in emergency room visits, the question of when that rises to a sufficient safety risk is up to the” US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Sotomayor said.
“That’s right,” Prelogar replied, and noted that the FDA studied the drug’s safety during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it was even easier to get, and noticed no change in adverse reactions:
I also want to emphasize, Justice Sotomayor, that the studies were far from the only evidence FDA consulted at the time it acted in 2021. It had real world experience during the Covid-19 pandemic, a period of time when the in-person dispensing requirement was not enforced. And FDA started by looking at, as a comparative analysis, the two periods of time when you had in-person dispensing and when you didn’t, and saw that there was no relevant increase in serious adverse events or difference between those two timeframes.
That’s significant because a federal appeals court last summer ruled against FDA decisions in 2016 and 2021 that made mifepristone easier to access. Those are now being challenged by the government in this hearing.
Here’s more about that:
Updated
The oral arguments began with a debate on whether the doctors have standing, or the right to bring the case in the first place.
Anti-abortion doctors claim they will suffer harm if they have to treat women who experience complications from mifepristone, an argument the Biden administration, which appealed the case to the court, has rejected as too speculative, especially given mifepristone’s proven safety record.
The supreme court has historically rejected standing arguments based on such potential harm, which the solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, said rested on a “long chain of remote contingencies”.
But conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, both abortion opponents, seemed skeptical of Prelogar’s arguments against standing, with Thomas even suggesting that theories of standing should be reconsidered if they don’t allow the case to move forward.
“Is there anybody who can sue and get a judicial ruling on whether what FDA did was lawful?” Alito asked. “Shouldn’t somebody be able to challenge that in court?”
Updated
Ruling against mifepristone would 'inflict grave harm on women across the nation' - Biden administration lawyer
In her opening statement, the US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, asked the supreme court to keep mifepristone available.
A ruling in favor of conservative groups challenging the medication “would severely disrupt the federal system for developing and approving drugs, harming the agency and the pharmaceutical industry. It would also inflict grave harm on women across the nation,” Prelogar said.
She continued:
Rolling back FDA changes would unnecessarily restrict access to mifepristone with no safety justification. Some women could be forced to undergo more invasive surgical abortions, others might not be able to access the drug at all. And all of this could happen at the request of plaintiffs who have no certain injury of their own. The court should reject that profoundly inequitable result.
Updated
Supreme court begins hearing conservative challenge to medication abortion
The supreme court has kicked off oral arguments as it weighs a conservative group’s attempt to restrict access to the abortion medication mifepristone.
Arguments are expected to take an hour. We’ll be covering them live.
Updated
As we await the start of the supreme court’s oral arguments in the conservative challenge to abortion medication mifepristone, here’s the Guardian’s Carter Sherman with a rundown of what we can expect in today’s hearing:
Abortion is back at the US supreme court, with arguments on Tuesday in the first major case on the issue since a 6-3 majority ruled in 2022 to overturn Roe v Wade and end the national right to abortion – a decision that unleashed abortion bans throughout the country as well as a political backlash that Democrats hope will serve them in the coming presidential election.
At issue in the case is the future of mifepristone, a drug typically used in US medication abortions. The rightwing groups that brought the case are seeking to roll back measures taken by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand the drug’s availability in recent years.
A decision in their favor would apply nationwide, including in states that protect abortion access, and would likely make the drug more difficult to acquire. The loosening of restrictions on mifepristone have helped mitigate the impact of post-Roe abortion bans; if those restrictions are reimposed, abortion rights groups anticipate it will become significantly more difficult to access abortions in the US.
“More than 60% of abortions in the US are medication abortions, so that would impact a substantial number of people, whether you live in a protective state or a restricted state,” said Nicole Huberfeld, a health law professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health.
A key moment in the conservative challenge to mifepristone occurred last year, when a federal appeals court issued a ruling to restrict access to the drug. The Guardian’s Melissa Segura reports on the connections between one of the judges who issued that decision, and a group opposing the drug:
When the former president Donald Trump appointed the Texas attorney James Ho to the fifth circuit court of appeals in 2017, lawyers at the prominent law firm Gibson Dunn – where Ho worked before his appointment – had a problem: how to replace the politically connected Ho. Turns out, they didn’t even need to change the home address for his replacement. Ho’s wife, Allyson, moved into her husband’s position and his old office.
Meet the Hos.
Few people outside of legal circles have heard of the Hos, yet the couple is tied to the case before the US supreme court that will determine women’s access to mifepristone, a drug commonly used in medication abortions. The court hears arguments in the case on Tuesday.
Ho served on the three-judge panel last summer that ruled to restrict access to mifepristone. The legal group behind the mifepristone case, Alliance Defending Freedom, made at least six payments from 2018 through 2022 to his wife, Allyson, a powerhouse federal appellate lawyer who has argued in front of the supreme court and has deep connections to the conservative legal movement that has led the attack on the right to abortion in the US.
Protesters have gathered outside the supreme court ahead of the 10am kickoff of oral arguments in the conservative challenges against mifepristone.
Both sides of the debate are well represented:
Protestors chanting “abortion is healthcare” pic.twitter.com/6ockkqnDQu
— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) March 26, 2024
A speaker who said they are with Alliance for Defending Freedom is speaking to a collection of antiabortion activists holding signs that say “FDA do your job” pic.twitter.com/d9p3Xc15tE
— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) March 26, 2024
Robots included:
Mifepristone dispensing robots pic.twitter.com/FfMXj2d5Xe
— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) March 26, 2024
Ruling tightening mifepristone access could upend US pharmaceutical industry
It’s not just access to medication abortion that could be upended by a supreme court ruling tightening access to mifepristone. As the Guardian’s Jessica Glenza reports, the conservative challengers to the drug have targeted decisions made by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make it easier to prescribe.
But if the supreme court agrees with their complaint, it opens up the possibility of a wave of challenges to other medications that treat a range of issues. Doctors and pharmaceutical companies have become so concerned about the case that they have filed briefs defending the FDA against the conservative challenge.
Here’s more on why the stakes in the case are so high:
A supreme court case about one little pill – mifepristone – has the medical and pharmaceutical world on edge. The pill, at the heart of a case that will be argued on Tuesday, is part of a two-drug regimen used to treat miscarriage and end early pregnancies.
Despite a more than 20-year track record of safe real-world use, backed up by more than 100 peer-reviewed studies, a group of anti-abortion doctors is seeking to roll back US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decisions that changed and relaxed some prescribing rules.
If the doctors succeed, despite contested and in some cases now-retracted evidence of harm, the case could reshape abortion access in the US and have enormous and unpredictable consequences for how drugs are prescribed, regulated and developed.
A ruling in favor of anti-abortion doctors could threaten everything from trust in medicine to specific drugs to the US’s position as the world’s foremost drug innovator.
“I am terrified,” said Juan Hincapie-Castillo, a drug policy researcher, licensed pharmacist and assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina. “This case is shifting the whole paradigm of how things could go moving forward”.
Mifepristone was approved by the FDA in 2000 with stringent requirements for how it should be prescribed: only up to seven weeks gestation, dispensed in-person with mandatory follow-up appointments, and with enhanced risk-reporting requirements for doctors. Along with misoprostol, the second drug in the regimen, it is, in effect, designed to induce the equivalent of a miscarriage at home.
After more than 20 years and scientific articles spanning 26 countries, the scientific consensus is that the “abortion pill” has a remarkable track record of safety and effectiveness that, in the media, is often compared to that of Tylenol or Viagra.
But following the fall of Roe v Wade in 2022, anti-abortion doctors initiated a lawsuit against the FDA in Amarillo, Texas, arguing that the drug’s approval should be withdrawn. The Trump-appointed judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled in favor of the doctors. Were his decision not appealed, it would have resulted in a de facto nationwide ban on medication abortion.
Updated
Supreme court to weigh conservative challenge to key abortion pill mifepristone
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Nearly two years after overturning Roe v Wade and allowing states to ban abortion, the supreme court will today at 10am ET hear arguments in a case that could limit the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone. It’s the first time the justices will address reproductive rights since the Dobbs decision in 2022, and will be argued before a court that is ideologically quite similar to the one that decided that case. Conservative justices, including the same five who voted to strike down Roe, dominate the court with a six-seat majority, while liberals hold a three-seat minority.
The arguments come as evidence emerges that usage of abortion medication has soared among Americans. A decision limiting access to mifepristone could also cause tumult in the presidential race, and is sure to be seized on by Joe Biden to argue that it’s a sign of what Donald Trump would do if put back in the White House. Trump did, after all, appoint three justices to the court and tip it decisively to the conservatives – all of whom voted to overturn Roe.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Joe Biden has been briefed on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. We have a live blog covering the latest news on the disaster, and you can find it here.
Is the GOP surrendering in their push to impeach Biden? Reports have emerged that the Republican architect of the attempt to bring charges against the president now says he’ll settle for a criminal referral to the justice department.
The White House press briefing will take place on Air Force One as Biden heads to campaign in North Carolina, sometime after 1pm.
Updated
