The Supreme Court has asked to rule on the abortion pill case

Pharmaceutical company Danco Laboratories asked the Supreme Court on Friday to review the case challenging the legality of the abortion pill mifepristone.

Danco’s request comes in response to a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that would place significant restrictions on the use and distribution of the drug to patients.

Danco, which sells the abortion pill, wants the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s ruling. The pharmaceutical company said the case was of “undeniable importance” for women’s health and the pharmaceutical industry.

“For the women and teenage girls, health care providers, and states who rely on FDA’s actions to ensure safe and effective reproductive health care, this case is of enormous importance,” Danco’s attorneys wrote in their filing.

“And allowing judicial challenges to the FDA’s scientific data analysis will have a profoundly destabilizing effect on the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries,” the lawyers wrote.

Danco’s request for the Supreme Court to take up the case comes nearly 15 months after the court’s conservative majority ruled against Roe v. Wade, overturned the landmark 1973 decision that protected abortion as a constitutional right. More than a dozen states have banned abortions as a result of this ruling.

The Supreme Court’s new term begins next month. Four justices must agree to take the abortion pill case. The US Justice Department is also expected to ask the Supreme Court to review the case.

Download the Danco Laboratories documentation here.

The appeals court decision will be put on hold until the Supreme Court makes a decision on the case. The Supreme Court in April pushed for a stay of lower court decisions at the Biden administration’s request as litigation over the pill continues.

A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decisions in recent years to make mifepristone more available to women did not take safety concerns into account.

If the Supreme Court accepts the case and upholds the appeals court decision, mifepristone will remain on the market in the United States, but patients will face greater hurdles in accessing the drug.

If the Supreme Court declines to take the case, the appeals court restrictions will come into effect.

Mifepristone, in combination with another drug called misoprostol, is the most common method of abortion in the United States

The appeals court order would end mail delivery of mifepristone and prescriptions through telemedicine appointments. Women would have to see a doctor in person to get a prescription and attend three follow-up visits while taking the medication.

The ruling also shortens the period in which women can take mifepristone from the current 10 weeks to seven weeks into their pregnancy.

The legal battle against mifepristone began last November when a group of abortion opponents called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the FDA’s original approval of the pill, which dates back more than 20 years.

U.S. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a sweeping order in April suspending FDA approval of mifepristone.

The appeals court reversed Kacsmaryk’s order, upholding the original FDA approval and the agency’s approval of a generic form of the pill.