CNN
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A group of anti-abortion doctors asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to restrict access to a key abortion drug while other legal challenges unfold, as a Wednesday evening deadline approaches so that the court can act.
The filing means that after the Justice Department files a response expected Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, the court could rule at any time as the legal battle over mifepristone continues, nearly two weeks after a federal judge in Texas said the drug should not have been approved. In 2000.
Last week, Justice Samuel Alito granted a request from the Biden administration and a manufacturer of the drug to temporarily stay the ruling to give the justices more time to review the case. Alito asked to hear from doctors and said the court would make its final decision Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. ET.
In the filing, the doctors asked the justices to ultimately deny the Biden administration’s request, arguing that for “nearly a quarter of a century,” the government and a manufacturer of the drug “brazenly flouted the law and regulations enforcers, ignored flaws and red flags in their own security data, intentionally evaded judicial scrutiny, and continually placed politics above women’s health.
Erik C. Baptist, a lawyer for the doctors, said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not done enough to study the drug’s safety.
“Over the decades, the agency has removed every meaningful and necessary safeguards regarding chemical abortion, demonstrating a complete disregard for women’s well-being, unborn life, and legal boundaries. »
He said the government’s argument amounts to a “sky-falling argument that compares chemical abortion to drugs like ibuprofen” and that lower court rulings that restrict access to it drug were “meticulous decisions” that he said “only require the agency to follow the law.” ”
Cnn