U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, et al.

Brief Filed: 1/24
Court: U.S. Supreme Court
Year of Decision: 2024

Read full-text amicus brief (PDF, 276KB)opens in new window

This case involves a challenge to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval of mifepristone used for medication abortion based in part on allegations by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) that medication abortion causes women physical and mental health harms.

Abortion

AHM sued the FDA in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The District Court issued an order granting AHM’s preliminary injunction suspending the FDA’s approval of the drug. On April 10, 2023, the Department of Justice and Danco Laboratories filed an emergency motion for a stay with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, asking the court to stay the district court's order. The U.S. Supreme Court enacted a temporary administrative stay on the District Court's decision while the Supreme Court considered the case. On April 21, 2023, the Supreme Court voted to stay the lower court’s decisions that would restrict access to mifepristone, pending decision of the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit ruled on August 16, 2023, to maintain the ban on mifepristone.

APA’s brief argues that the lower court incorrectly concluded that medication abortion is linked to negative physical and mental health outcomes. There is no rigorous scientific research to indicate that abortion causes a negative impact on women’s mental health. Decades of scientific research confirms the opposite. Scientific studies that have compared the mental health consequences of receiving an abortion versus being denied an abortion have instead found that those denied abortion care experience more symptoms of anxiety and low self-esteem soon after being denied an abortion. APA’s brief provided the court with the scientific evidence demonstrating that denial of access to abortion care results in both short-term and long-term negative socioeconomic and health outcomes for women and children. APA’s brief was joined by the National Association of Social Workers.

On June 13, 2024, in a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that the anti-abortion groups that initially sued the FDA lacked standing to bring the case in the first place, leaving all previous FDA actions intact.