US Supreme Court pauses stay on mifepristone ruling

The US Supreme Court preserved access to a widely-used abortion medication Friday evening.

The justices granted emergency requests by the Justice Department and mifepristone's manufacturer to put on hold a lower court's ruling that would have greatly limited the availability of the abortion pill.

The move follows a Texas federal judge ruling earlier this month that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "stonewalled judicial review" of its decades-old approval of the ‘morning after’ abortion pill mifepristone (marketed by Danco Laboratories under the trade name Mifeprex) and agreed to stay the effective date of the drug's approval.