Trump administration asks Supreme Court to reinstate abortion medication rule

On Wednesday, the Trump administration requested the Supreme Court to reinstate an FDA rule requiring patients to take the abortion-inducing drugs mifepristone and misoprostol in the presence of a physician. A U.S. district judge in Maryland, Theodore Chuang, suspended the rule in July in response to a lawsuit from the American College Of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, patients, and physicians. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to halt the judge’s order while the Trump administration appeals, prompting the administration’s stay request to the Supreme Court. In its petition, the Trump administration called on the justices to restore the FDA rule while the appeals process moves forward. Attorneys for the Justice Department wrote, “This Court has made clear that judges are not to second-guess how officials address public-health concerns in areas of uncertainty, yet the district court dismissed the FDA’s expert judgment in favor of its own view that the safety requirements are medically unnecessary.”