attentive General Merrick Garland said that Thursday

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the Biden administration will ask the Supreme Court to keep full and easy access to the abortion medication that has become the most common method of terminating early pregnancies.

He was responding to a 2-1 ruling by a conservative appeals court that would ban sending the abortion pills through the mail and limit their use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy.

The Food and Drug Administration approved and declared the use of mifepristone in 2000

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safe and effective when used in combination with a second drug, misopostal.

Since then, more than 5 million American women have used the drugs safely, the government said.

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Abortion advocates, including a group of doctors, went to federal court in Amarillo, Texas, seeking a ruling that would revoke FDA approval and remove the drug from the market.

Last week, they won in front of their hand-picked U.S. District Court judge, Matthew Kacscmaryk. Late Wednesday, the 5th Circuit panel overruled part of its ruling.

The two majority justices said it was probably too late to challenge the FDA’s 2000 approval of the drug, but not too late to block the FDA’s more recent moves to relax the drug’s regulation.

They pointed to the 2016 decision to extend the time limit for using the medication to 10 weeks of pregnancy, up from the original seven. Two years ago, the FDA approved sending the drugs through the mail.

Garland quickly announced that he would appeal those rulings.

“We will seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court to defend the FDA’s scientific judgment and protect Americans’ access to safe and effective reproductive care,” Garland said.

Easy access to abortion medication became more important to millions of women after last year’s Supreme Court ruling that gave Roe v. Wade reversed and ended legal abortion in much of the country.

Abortion rights advocates said Thursday that conservative judges are again trying to restrict access to abortion.

“We are outraged that yet another court chooses to jeopardize the health and future of the millions of people who depend on mifepristone for abortion care,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This baseless case is a politically motivated one. attack to further restrict access to abortion, putting care beyond the reach of patients and we will not stand for it.”

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Abortion advocates said the legal dispute was about health and safety.

March for Life President Jeanne Mancini celebrated the decision with the following statement:

We are pleased that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily reinstated important and sound health and safety protections surrounding the use of chemical abortion drugs,” said Jeanne Mancini, president of

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March for life. “The FDA’s removal of these safeguards demonstrates a reckless disregard for women’s health when it comes to abortion.”

Attorneys from the Justice Department will file their appeals with Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., the author of last year’s 5-4 opinion ruling Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to abortion.

Alito is the judge overseeing 5th Circuit appeals, and he will almost certainly distribute the appeal among all judges.

They can issue an administrative suspension

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putting the appeal on hold for some time while they think about how to decide.