- Term
- 2023-2024
Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance For Hippocratic Medicine
This was a lawsuit manufactured by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM), an astroturf group created solely to obtain a ruling blocking access to the abortion medicine mifepristone. AHM did this by incorporating in the single judge jurisdiction of Amarillo, Texas, presided over by Matthew Kacsmaryck, a Trump-appointed judge who previously worked for the anti-abortion group First Liberty — the same group that Ginni Thomas secretly praised for its work opposing Supreme Court reform — and hid some of his anti-abortion writings from the Senate. AHM was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an anti-abortion group that has repeatedly partnered with First Liberty in anti-abortion cases. ADF sued to revoke FDA approval of mifepristone, a safe and effective medication that accounted for 53% of abortions pre-Dobbs and has become even more in demand since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Kacsmaryck’s ruling wrongly asserted that the drug is unsafe, citing outlier studies that have since been withdrawn by their publisher for potential conflicts of interest with anti-abortion groups and falsely presented findings. Revoking FDA approval more than two decades after mifepristone was approved would dramatically limit abortion access in all 50 states. The case also threatened the FDA’s expert authority and the reliability of the approval process for other medications targeted by right-wing activists, including birth control, HIV and AIDS prevention drugs, treatments for gender-affirming care, and more.
On June 13, 2024, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that AHM lacked standing to bring the lawsuit.
