WASHINGTON – In response to the upcoming Supreme Court case about access to the commonly used abortion pill, mifepristone, the U.S. bishops are calling on Catholics across the country to pray for an end to abortion.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, issued the call to prayer in a March 14 statement.
The bishops said the Supreme Court’s case centers on how the Food and Drug Administration has been “promoting the availability of chemical abortion while ignoring risks to women and violating federal law.”
“In short,” they added, “the FDA has enabled a nationwide mail-order abortion industry and turned neighborhood pharmacies into chemical abortion providers.”
The bishops stressed that the upcoming case is not about ending chemical abortions, but it could restore limitations on the pill used for medical abortions “that the FDA has overridden.”
They asked Catholics to seek the intercession of St. Joseph as the “Defender of Life,” and provided a prayer in English and Spanish available here: respectlife.org/prayer-to-st-joseph.
The prayer recounts how St. Joseph guided Mary and Jesus as they fled for safety. It asks for his help to “faithfully commit ourselves to the service and defense of human life — especially where it is vulnerable or threatened.”
The bishops are urging Catholics to say this prayer daily from March 25, the eve of the arguments before the court, and to continue to say the prayer until late June when the decision will likely be announced.
The start date for this daily prayer is also the anniversary of St. John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”) that emphasizes that human life is a gift from God and is sacred and inviolable.
The mifepristone case is the first abortion ruling before the Supreme Court since it overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The bishops said the court’s decision on this will likely get a lot of attention, saying: “We can expect a public and political reaction similar to the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.”
The case centers on an appeal by the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer over a federal appeals court ruling that had significantly blocked access to the abortion drug: banning the pills from being sent through the mail and shortening the window they can be used to terminate pregnancies from the current 10 weeks’ gestation to seven weeks.
An emergency ruling by the Supreme Court last year has kept access to mifepristone unchanged.
Last April, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas sided with abortion opponents challenging the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone in 2000 as a safe and effective medication and suspended its FDA approval. In response, the Justice Department filed an emergency appeal to the 5th Circuit.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said the drug’s initial approval should not be revoked, but they agreed with the Texas judge that the challengers were likely to win on other claims, such as the drug’s availability by mail and a provision that allowed the pills to be prescribed to women at up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.
The Supreme Court, in a brief order last year, put the lower court rulings on hold pending appeals, leaving access to the abortion pill in place. It also turned down the appeal regarding mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness.
The lawsuit against the abortion pill was filed last November by the group Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine on behalf of itself and member groups such as the Catholic Medical Association, the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, and other pro-life groups, represented by the religious liberty law firm, Alliance Defending Freedom.
Their lawsuit claimed the FDA “ignored the potential impacts of the hormone-blocking regimen on the developing bodies of adolescent girls” and disregarded evidence that chemical abortions cause more complications, particularly bleeding, than surgical abortions.
Mifepristone, also known as RU-486, is the first of a two-drug regimen used to end a pregnancy in its early stages.
The USCCB has been vocal in their opposition to the drug since it was first given FDA approval more than 20 years ago. They echoed their objections in 2016 when the FDA relaxed rules for the drug’s use, saying it could be administered with fewer visits to a doctor. The bishops also objected to the FDA’s announcement last year that it was allowing some retail pharmacies to distribute the drug.