Even the Supreme Court seems sick of its abortion pills case

The Supreme Court appeared listless, even bored, during Tuesday’s oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the case asking the courts to ban the abortion drug mifepristone.

Their frustration with the Alliance case is understandable, since they’ve been dealing with it for nearly an entire year. Last April, after two lower courts issued decisions that would have effectively removed mifepristone from the market, the justices voted 7-2 to leave access to mifepristone intact while this case was being appealed.

On Tuesday, it appeared likely that the justices would break down along the exact same lines — with only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito voting to halt access to the drug.

Broadly speaking, the Alliance case presents two separate legal issues. The first is whether the Food and Drug Administration erred when it took several steps, beginning in 2016, that made it easier for health providers to prescribe mifepristone.

The plaintiffs faced an extraordinarily steep uphill climb to prevail on this issue. The Supreme Court has long said that a “court is not empowered to substitute its judgment for that of” the FDA when evaluating if a particular drug should be on the market. The only question judges may consider when evaluating the FDA’s decision is whether the agency articulated a “rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.”