SW News: President Joe Biden's administration is defending access to the drug, and US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Thursday that the Justice Department will petition the Supreme Court to intervene to stop limits placed on the abortion pill mifepristone by a federal judge.

Garland said in a statement that the government will ask the Supreme Court for immediate relief to defend the US Food and Drug Administration’s scientific judgment and protect Americans' access to safe and effective reproductive care.

More than half of all abortions performed in the United States are medication abortions, which use the drug mifepristone in combination with the chemical misoprostol, which was approved by the FDA in 2000. The FDA is the American organization that certifies the safety of pharmaceuticals and food goods.

Acting in response to a lawsuit filed against mifepristone by multiple anti-abortion organizations, US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, granted a preliminary injunction last Friday that places stringent limitations on the drug's distribution while the case is ongoing.

The directive restricts the use of the pill to the first seven weeks of pregnancy, down from the current ten, and mandates in-person doctor appointments in order to receive it.

Late on Wednesday, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected the Justice Department's attempt to overturn those restrictions, which effectively reinstated distribution restrictions on the pill that had been suspended since 2016.

Another provision of Kacsmaryk's injunction that would have taken the medicine off the market by suspending its federal regulatory approval was agreed to be postponed by the 5th Circuit.

In an effort to stop the FDA from approving misoprostol, anti-abortion organizations led by the recently established Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and four anti-abortion physicians filed a lawsuit in November.

In a statement released on Thursday, the plaintiffs' conservative legal team, Alliance Defending Freedom, hailed the 5th Circuit ruling as "a significant victory for the doctors we represent, women's health, and every American who deserves an accountable federal government acting within the bounds of the law."