ANALYSIS: Abortion Pill Ruling Clears Path for Cases Against FDA

The US Supreme Court’s mifepristone ruling preserves access to the widely-used abortion pill, for now. It also puts several separate legal challenges back on track in an ongoing fight over the extent to which the FDA can restrict the drug.

At least three district court lawsuits over Food and Drug Administration mifepristone regulations were on pause pending the Supreme Court’s Thursday ruling. The high court ruled in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine that the plaintiffs—anti-abortion doctors and medical associations—lacked standing to sue because they don’t prescribe the pill.

The plaintiffs in Alliance were challenging the FDA’s decisions to ...