Supreme Court upholds mifepristone access: Implications for women's health
Kristyn Brandi, MD, MPH, FACOG, discusses the Supreme Court's decision to maintain mifepristone availability and its potential impact on future women's health cases.
In a recent interview with Contemporary OB/GYN, Kristyn Brandi, MD, MPH, FACOG, Complex Family Planning Subspecialist, discussed the Supreme Court’s decision to retain mifepristone access and how women’s health may be impacted by future court cases.
The Supreme Court decided to uphold current regulations surrounding mifepristone, ensuring availability across the United States. Brandi noted that had the Supreme Court decided against this, millions of individuals would have lost access to this key drug in reproductive health management.
Drug innovation was also at risk of being undermined during this case, as removing access would have set a standard for organizations other than the FDA to make decisions surrounding medications on the market. This could have had consequences reaching to life-saving medicines.
For health care providers, this has been a positive sign. “I think a lot of people are giving sighs of relief and joy that they can just kind of do their day-to-day work and not have to worry about the Supreme Court,” Brandi said. Providers were feeling anxiety and confusion before the decision was made but can now confidently provide evidence-based care.
Currently, it is unclear how future Supreme Court cases related to women’s health may be impacted by this decision. The ruling for this case was that those who brought the suit did not have standing. While this protects mifepristone temporarily, it also provides an opportunity for other groups to challenge the regulations.
Brandi worries that stigmatized care is still at risk of becoming unavailable. This includes contraception, gender affirming care, and HIV management. With this in mind, Brandi highlighted some additional cases, such as the recent case about whether states could ban abortion even in the case of life-saving treatment.
The case was thrown out by the Supreme Court, meaning a decision was not made about emergency care. This has led to questions about whether the care could be provided, and Brandi has predicted this will impact care in future states. This, alongside bans for in vitro fertilization and gender-affirming care, has led to uncertainty about the future of reproductive health.
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