US Supreme Court temporarily extends access to abortion drug

Washington [US], April 20 : US Supreme Court on Wednesday temporarily extended a hold on a lower court ruling that would have imposed restrictions on access to an abortion drug, CNN reported.

As per CNN, the move is meant to give the justices more time to consider the issue.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had in a similar order last week, said the court would rule by 11:59 pm ET on Wednesday. The new order, called an "administrative stay", moves that deadline to Friday, April 21.

The order was written by Alito because he has jurisdiction over the lower court that ruled in the dispute, according to CNN,

CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, Steve Vladeck said: "Today's order tells us nothing about how the full Court is going to rule other than that it's likely there will be some kind of writing, whether by the majority or by Justices who might be writing separate concurrences or dissents. But it's impossible to know which way that ruling is going to go; all we know for sure is that we'll know more by the end of the evening on Friday."

The case is the most important abortion-related dispute to reach the high court since the justices overturned Roe v Wade last term, triggering conservative states across the country to either ban or severely restrict the procedure, according to CNN.

The Supreme Court put on hold a lower court's decision to revoke the authorization of mifepristone, one of the drugs used in roughly half of all US abortions.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had recently permitted the mailing and distribution of mifepristone to patients between seven and 10 weeks of pregnancy, but the appeals court nevertheless placed various restrictions on its use.