SCOTUS struck down a challenge to restrict access to mifepristone, a pill used in abortions.
The justices voted 9-0.
The ruling is narrow, though, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone. Doctors opposed to abortion and doctors who do not perform abortions challenged the FDA relaxing restrictions on the pill, including not enforcing in-person visits for a prescription.
The plaintiffs argued that the “FDA has ‘impaired’ their ‘ability to provide services and achieve their organizational missions.”
Justice Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion and stated that the plaintiffs had no standing under Article III of the Constitution. The late Justice Scalia once explained Article III asks the plaintiff, “What’s it to you?”
Did the plaintiffs have a personal stake in the dispute?
“Like an individual, an organization may not establish standing simply based on the ‘intensity of the litigant’s interest’ or because of strong opposition to the government’s conduct,” wrote Kavanaugh. “The plaintiff associations therefore cannot establish standing simply because they object to FDA’s actions.”
That’s because the plaintiffs had no personal stake:
The plaintiffs do not allege the kinds of injuries described above that unregulated parties sometimes can assert to demonstrate causation. Because the plaintiffs do not prescribe, manufacture, sell, or advertise mifepristone or sponsor a competing drug, the plaintiffs suffer no direct monetary injuries from FDA’s actions relaxing regulation of mifepristone. Nor do they suffer injuries to their property, or to the value of their property, from FDA’s actions. Because the plaintiffs do not use mifepristone, they obviously can suffer no physical injuries from FDA’s actions relaxing regulation of mifepristone.
Kavanaugh also denied the plaintiffs’ argument for standing because no one else would have standing to challenge the FDA.
“That suggestion fails because the Court has long rejected that kind of argument as a basis for standing,” continued Kavanaugh. “The ‘assumption’ that if these plaintiffs lack ‘standing to sue, no one would have standing, is not a reason to find standing.'”
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