Swing and Mifepristone

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Given the recent trends at the Supreme Court, today’s unanimous decision to strike down a legal challenge to the abortion pill mifepristone might come as a surprise. The decision creates more of a holding pattern than a definitive outcome as judges ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case. NYT (Gift Article): Abortion Ruling Has Nothing to Do With the Pills’ Safety or Morality. “The opinion in the case focused entirely on standing, the legal doctrine that requires plaintiffs to show that they have suffered direct and concrete injuries in order to sue…Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, once succinctly summarized the standing doctrine, saying it requires plaintiffs to answer this question: ‘What’s it to you?'”

+ Vox: The Supreme Court’s abortion pill case is only a narrow and temporary victory for abortion. “The good news for abortion rights is that mifepristone remains legal for now. The bad news is that Kavanaugh’s opinion lays out two ways that anti-abortion advocates could still try to ban it.” We know which way this court is headed. The open question is which way the country heads in November.

+ Meanwhile, the changing landscape post-Roe is already costing people a lot of freedom … and a lot of gas money. NYT (Gift Article): 171,000 Traveled for Abortions Last Year. See Where They Went.