FILE - In this photo illustration, packages of Mifepristone tablets are displayed at a family planning clinic on April 13, 2023 in Rockville, Maryland. (Photo illustration by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) NEW ORLEANS - Three conservative appeals court judges, each with a history of supporting restrictions on abortion, will hear arguments May 17 on whether a widely used abortion drug should remain available.The case involves a regulatory issue — whether the Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone, and subsequent actions making it easier to obtain, must be rolled back.
The appellate hearing follows an April ruling by a federal judge in Texas, who ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval.
His ruling was stayed pending appeal. The case was allotted to a panel made up of Jennifer Walker Elrod, James Ho and Cory Wilson.The Supreme Court on April 21, 2023, preserved women’s access to a drug used in the most common method of abortion, rejecting lower-court restrictions while a lawsuit continues.
The justices granted emergency requests from the Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, maker of the drug mifepristone.The three judges of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S.