Decide Kacsmaryk, an appointee of Mr. Trump, is a longtime opponent of abortion and joined the bench after working at First Liberty Institute, a conservative authorized group that focuses on points of spiritual liberty.
The coalition that introduced the go well with, the Alliance for Hippocratic Drugs, argued that the F.D.A. had improperly accredited the tablet in 2000 and that mifepristone is unsafe. The company has strongly disputed these claims, pointing to research that present that severe issues are uncommon and that lower than 1 p.c of sufferers want hospitalization.
This month, Decide Kacsmaryk, in a short lived ruling, declared invalid the F.D.A.’s approval of the drug and gave each events every week to hunt emergency reduction earlier than the choice took impact.
Lower than an hour later, a federal decide in Washington State, Thomas O. Rice, an appointee of President Barack Obama, issued a contradictory ruling in a separate lawsuit over mifepristone. Decide Rice blocked the F.D.A. from limiting the supply of the tablet in 17 states and the District of Columbia, which have been events in that go well with.
The competing rulings meant that the matter was virtually definitely headed to the Supreme Court docket.
The F.D.A. instantly appealed Decide Kacsmaryk’s choice, and a divided three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, upheld the company’s approval of the drug, making certain that mifepristone would stay available on the market.
However the panel imposed a number of limitations to entry, siding partially with Decide Kacsmaryk, whereas the lawsuit moved via the courts. It blocked a sequence of steps the F.D.A. had taken since 2016 to extend the supply and distribution of the drug, reminiscent of permitting it to be despatched by mail and to be prescribed by medical suppliers who are usually not docs.
Adam Liptak and Christina Jewett contributed reporting.
