WASHINGTON, DC – The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that pro-life doctors do not have standing to challenge President Biden’s abortion pill mandate. held The ruling, passed Thursday, paved the way for Republican-led states to challenge abortion mandates but is a victory for religious freedom, confirming that pro-life doctors cannot be forced to perform abortions.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2016 and 2021, under Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, relaxed restrictions on the abortion drug mifepristone, which can be taken to induce early abortions.
Boxes of the medication mifepristone sit on a shelf at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, March 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)
In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the pro-life doctors did not have standing to sue and did not rule on whether the restrictions were illegal.
“Several pro-life doctors and organizations have sued the FDA, alleging that the agency’s actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act. But the plaintiffs neither prescribe nor use mifepristone, and the FDA has not asked them to do or refrain from doing anything,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court. “Rather, the plaintiffs want the FDA to make it harder for other doctors to prescribe mifepristone and harder for pregnant women to obtain it. Under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, the plaintiffs’ desire to make it harder for others to obtain a drug does not give rise to standing to sue.”
“The first issue is whether the plaintiffs have standing under Article III of the Constitution,” the unanimous opinion noted. “Article III standing is a fundamental constitutional requirement that this Court has applied to every dispute of importance. Standing is based on a single fundamental principle: the Constitution’s separation of powers.”
Anti-abortion protesters demonstrate prior to a meeting of the Arizona House of Representatives at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 17, 2024. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
“For a plaintiff to open the doors of a federal court and obtain a judicial determination of what the governing law is, the plaintiff must have a personal interest in the dispute, not just be an observer,” Kavanaugh explained. “The requirement that the plaintiff have a personal interest helps ensure that the court is determining the legal rights of the parties to a lawsuit in a particular case, as provided by Article III. [of the Constitution] It is expected that the courts will not take a position on legal issues while citizens roam the country searching for government wrongdoing.”
Explaining that the constitutional concept of standing to litigate means that the Court will not act like a “forum,” the opinion said, “By limiting who can litigate, the standing requirement fulfills the Framers’ conception of the Court’s proper, and appropriately limited, role in a democratic society.”
The Court explained the basic constitutional framework that gives plaintiffs the right to sue in federal court:
The fundamentals of standing are well known and firmly rooted in the U.S. Constitution. As this Court has often stated, to establish standing, a plaintiff must demonstrate that (i) it has suffered or is likely to suffer damage, (ii) that damage was caused or is likely to be caused by the defendant, and (iii) that damage is likely to be remedied by the judicial remedy sought.
“Actual harm can be physical harm, financial harm, damage to property, or damage to constitutional rights,” Kavanaugh noted. “Furthermore, the harm must be actual or imminent, not speculative, meaning that the harm has already occurred or is likely to occur in the near future.”
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh attends the swearing-in ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on October 8, 2018. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“By requiring plaintiffs to prove a factual injury, Article III standing excludes plaintiffs who have only general legal, moral, ideological, or policy objections to a particular government action,” he added. “For example, citizens do not have standing to challenge a government regulation merely because the plaintiff believes the government is acting unlawfully.”
The Court spoke eloquently on this point, continuing:
The factual damage requirement prevents federal courts from being a vehicle for protecting the valuable interests of concerned bystanders. Article III courts are not legislative assemblies, town squares, or teacher’s lounges. Article III does not envision a system in which 330 million citizens can sue in federal court every time they believe the government is acting contrary to the Constitution or other federal law. It is the role of Congress and the Executive to protect the public interest, including the public interest in government complying with the Constitution and the laws.
“In this case, the plaintiff physicians and medical associations are unregulated parties seeking to challenge FDA’s regulations of others. Specifically, FDA’s regulations apply to physicians who prescribe mifepristone and to pregnant women who take mifepristone,” the court said, applying the principle of standing to the plaintiffs in these consolidated actions. “But the plaintiff physicians and medical associations do not prescribe or use mifepristone, and the FDA has not required the plaintiffs to do or refrain from doing anything.”
“Plaintiffs have not identified any case in which a physician was required to perform an abortion despite a conscience objection or to provide abortion-related care that violated the physician’s conscience,” the court noted.
Anti-abortion activists celebrate in response to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC on June 24, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The ruling later reversed course, delivering a major victory for religious freedom regarding EMTALA, a federal law that requires emergency rooms to provide medical care based on a patient’s ability to pay. In the case, pro-life doctors expressed concern that a mandate for abortion pills could force them to administer the drugs in emergency rooms.
“Because EMTALA does not impose obligations on individual physicians, it does not require physicians to perform abortions or provide abortion-related medical procedures despite conscience objections,” the court ruled. “We agree with the Attorney General’s argument that federal conscience protections are broad and protect physicians who do not want to provide medical procedures in violation of those protections.”
The Supreme Court’s decision leaves open the possibility that other states — likely states — may have the right to sue, meaning Missouri, Kansas and Idaho could launch their own challenges to the abortion pill mandate.
The integrated case is FDA v. Hippocratic Medical Association and Danko vs. the Hippocratic Medical LeagueU.S. Supreme Court Case Nos. 23-235 and 23-236.
Breitbart News senior legal contributor Ken Kurkowski is a former White House and Justice Department lawyer. Follow us on X (formerly Twitter) Kenkrukowski.
