Ten months after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, access to abortion is once again before the United States Supreme Court, in a case that targets not only abortion medication but also the Food and Drug Administration. Last week, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, of the Northern District of Texas, invalidated the F.D.A.’s approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, which dates back to 2000, igniting a furor among pro-choice politicians and a backlash from biotech and pharmaceutical companies. The conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily narrowed Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling, making the pill available but reducing the period of pregnancy when the drug can be taken from ten to seven weeks and barring its shipment by mail. The case is now before the Supreme Court. In this week’s political roundtable, the New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos consider what is at stake in the newest battle over abortion access and how this moment reflects the right’s larger effort to reduce the regulatory state.
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