will the U.S Supreme Court has until midnight Friday to decide whether miffapristone a widely used abortion pill should remain available Nationwide extending their original deadline by two days justices are weighing whether to more permanently block a lower Court ruling that rolled back the Food and Drug administration's more than two decade-old approval of the medication the pill though remains accessible and without restrictions while the legal case plays out but it's caused Mass confusion for patients and Chaos for abortion providers like Dr Kristen Brandy and OB GYN in the state but for us on the ground providing care it's really stressful to continue to have to think about how we need to change care to accommodate for the Supreme Court ruling all of us are waiting for what's going to happen on Friday and we don't know exactly what that's going to look like but really that's going to really determine what kind of care people are going to be able to get in New Jersey adding into this whole mix gen bio Pro which is the generic maker of miffapristone sued the FDA on Wednesday seeking to protect its drug if the courts revoke the medication's approval this decision will be the first major U.S Supreme Court action related to abortion since it overturned Roe v Wade in June of last year for more on what could happen next I'm joined by Kim mutterson codeine and professor of law at Rutgers Camden law school Kim mutterson good to have you back on the show what should we expect to happen next well now we're just waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in so obviously we got to stay last week from Justice Alito um we thought that we would get a decision from them yesterday on Wednesday we didn't they extended it until Friday so we're waiting to see essentially whether the Supreme Court is going to decide that one of the existing changes to lipopristone law will go into effect based on the decisions from the courts below or whether they'll say look we just need to keep everything status quo throughout the court proceedings rather than change anything so what we're really worried about or depending upon you know where you sort of sit what we're worried about is whether the Supreme Court is going to decide to change anything about how people access the fapristone while this litigation is pending well what does it say if anything what does it suggest that the justices needed more time they extended this deadline for themselves I'm not quite sure how to interpret that and and to be honest I've sort of tried to get out of the business of thinking about what this court is trying to do um because they seem to be a little bit all over the place um but you know I think that it makes sense that they're spending some time really thinking through the implications of this case so if they decide for instance that the original stay right from the first judge in Texas if they decide that what that judge decided should go into effect it basically means that it will um essentially take mipopristone off the market depending upon how the FDA wants to respond to it if they decide they want to go with what the court of appeals said Memphis pristine will remain on the market but a lot of the changes that were made to how it is prescribed and how people can access it over the years those will go away so the only way that we get to status quo meaning the way that things are now is that the Supreme Court says we don't care what the court of appeals did we don't care what the lower Court did we're going to keep things exactly as they are now until we have a decision on the merits does it raise other legal issues though just about the fda's process of approving drugs because again that's the larger issue at hand with this case yeah I mean so I I wonder a part of what and again I I said I wasn't gonna try to think of what the job well we got you now so yeah um you know I wonder part of what they're thinking is look this is a really big deal right this is not just about abortion and we need to really spend some time thinking about the impact of making a decision that says we don't care what the experts in the FDA had to say we think they were arbitrary and capricious um when they decided to approve Memphis Stone and so we're going to tell them that they have to take it off the market that's a really huge decision for this court to make and raises serious implications about the relationship between our various branches of government um so it's right for them to really spend some time thinking about it and hopefully they'll come down on the right side I'm wondering there was another lawsuit filed today by Jen bio that's a maker of a generic version of mifiperstone um suing the FDA actually basically to protect its drug should action be taken does that have any effect here so we've got lots of litigation going here I mean we already had Texas we have Washington State now we've got another case going and so another piece of this puzzle that we have to think about is what do we do when we have all of these competing decisions coming out of various federal courts right people are filing all over the place and different plaintiffs are filing and that's a piece of the puzzle for the Supreme Court as well um you know they have to figure out if we've got all these competing ideas that are floating around they're the they're the final Arbiter they're the ones who get to decide ultimately what the law of the land is and that's a very very big role for them to play in this in this suit all right correct me if I'm wrong but last year in overturning Roe v Wade wasn't it the Supreme Court that said uh you know it would leave abortion policy up to States and the federal government and yet here we are here we are exactly and that's what a lot of us predicted right I mean it was very clear that what was going to happen and after jobs one was enormous chaos in terms of providing abortion in this country but two lots and lots of litigation and once that litigation is in federal court the Supreme Court is on the table and that's what we're seeing right now we'll be checking back in with you Kim mucherson codeine and professor of law at Rutgers Camden law school Kim thanks so much of course great to talk to you