the fate of the abortion pill mifepristone mifepristone rests in the hands of the US Supreme Court Justices today heard oral arguments on whether to restrict access to the widely used drug which is the most common method of abortion in the country at the center of the dispute a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations challenging the Food and Drug administration's more than two decade old approval of mtha prisone and the fda's decisions over the past several years to increase access to the pill including making it available by mail a majority of the Justices today appeared deeply skeptical about a nationwide ban and called into question whether the plaintiffs have the legal grounds or standing to bring the lawsuit which is the most significant abortion case to go before the high court since Ro v Wade was overturned in 2022 eliminating the Nationwide right to abortion after nearly 50 years if the court sides with the plaintiffs it means access to to mha prone would be limited even in States like New Jersey where the right to abortion has been cified into State Law Senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan reports hundreds gathered again before the US Supreme Court to protest a crucial abortion access case less than two years after the conservative majority overturned roie Wade the court could roll back easy tele medicine access to M prone and an FDA approved drug used in 2third of medication abortions last year in the US what's at stake again we always think about who's impacted it's always going to be people that are marginalized That Couldn't travel to access care and need the access to medication via tele medicine to be able to access abortion in their areas and this ruling May prevent that from happening mha prones widely regarded as very safe and effective during covid the FDA relaxed rules requiring an in-office exam to get the drug and made that permanent in 2021 male orders soared but seven anti-abortion doctors sued claiming that when patients who took the drug came into the ER with complications it forced them to provide abortion Health Care against their conscience this sort of complicity um harm um from being involved in an elective abortion your honor and again these doctors performing a DNC uh must scrape out a woman's uterus uh of of a child of the embryo the fetus or placental tissue and this court has recognized harms like that but attorneys for the FDA and Drug maker Dano Labs argued valid studies show a very small increase in complications and several justices noted the law already offers individual doctors the right to refuse cases that violate their conscience they're saying because we object to having uh to be forced to participate in this procedure we're seeking an order PR preventing anyone from having access to these drugs at all and I I guess I'm just trying to understand how they could possibly be entitled to that given the injury that they have alleged I agree Justice Jackson and and I do think it's relevant to standing there's a profound mismatch here between the claimed injury and the remedy they were seeking and this case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assem L on on on an FDA rule or any other federal government action Justice Barrett questioned whether prescribing the drug without a doctor's visit could miscalculate how far along a pregnancy had progressed since mytha prist Stone can only be used until 10 weeks fda's ultimate conclusion was that myth prisone could safely be dispensed without in-person visits it had voluminous evidence I think to support that conclusion in 2021 and there's been no contrary evidence that been introduced so there was no requirement of either an ultrasound or um detecting a fetal heartbeat or anything like that even before the doctor could just go based on the woman's recounting when her last menstrual period was that's right and that dates all the way back to the initial approval of this drug in 2000 but attorneys for the anti-abortion doctors also challenged the fda's methods and statistics Justice Alo hammered drug maker Dano labs's attorney you think the FDA is infallible no your honor we don't think that at all and we don't think that question is really teed up in any way in this case but the drug has been marketed by male to states which have enacted abortion bans since the court overturned roow Alo asked whether that violated the comto ACT a so-called dead law which prohibits mailing contraceptives or state statutes does your company think that what the FDA has done preempts state laws that prohibit the dispensation of myth Prestone within their borders we have not taken a position on that issue in this case this is not a case about comto right this is a case about the FDA and the decisions that the FDA made Rucker's law attorney Kim merchon says the court continues to question Federal Authority but it got little traction today the focus remains on M Prestone we're just arguing about whether we should roll back the changes that have been made um over time to make it more um accessible the legal case reverberates across political lines as the US heads towards a rockus election or abortion tops many campaign debates Senator Corey Booker tweeted this Congress needs to act to protect the right of access to life saving abortion and if this Congress does not act we must get new Congress people that will the courts expected to rule on the case in June I'm Brenda Flanagan NJ Spotlight news NJ Spotlight news