Today the Supreme Court held that anti-abortion doctors lack standing to challenge the Food and Drug Administration's regulations governing mifepristone. This was as expected. Justice Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Food & Drug Administration. Justice Thomas also wrote a separate concurrence on third-party and associational standing.
As I documented in a series of posts (linked here and below) the arguments offered in support of standing by AHM and the lower courts were never particularly strong, particularly once courts concluded that challenges to the FDA's initial approval of mifepristone in 2000 were time barred. There was never much question that the Supreme Court would conclude that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing in this case. The only question was whether it would be unanimous (as opposed to 8-1 or 7-2). Access to mifepristone was never at risk from this litigation.
Here is how Justice Kavanaugh summarizes his unanimous opinion for the Court:
