Legal uncertainty surrounds access to abortion pill mifepristone.

Competing rulings by two federal judges over the availability of the abortion drug mifepristone are sowing alarm and confusion for Americans who insist that availability must be guaranteed. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee in Amarillo, Texas, overruled decades of scientific approval and put on hold federal approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in combination to end pregnancies. At about the same time in Spokane, Washington, U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an Obama appointee, directed federal officials not to hinder access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats sued to keep the drug’s availability intact. The issue will likely be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court, which last year repealed Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that had established a constitutional right to abortions.