The Supreme Court on Friday granted a full stay in a case concerning the Food and Drug Administration's approval of -- and access to -- the widely used abortion pill mifepristone.

The court's decision preserves access to mifepristone as lower court legal battles play out.

The court previously gave itself more time to decide whether it would wade into legal battle over a Texas judge's unprecedented ruling suspending the FDA's approval of mifepristone more than 20 years ago.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday afternoon, before the court acted, that the administration was prepared for whatever action came from the bench.

"All I can tell you at this time as we're all waiting, we're all watching, is that we are prepared," Jean-Pierre said. "We are prepared for whatever announcement comes out of the Supreme Court, and if need be, we are prepared also for a long legal battle. That is our commitment and our promise to the millions of women across the country."

Medication abortion quickly became the new focus of legal battles over abortion access following the Supreme Court's decision to overrule Roe v. Wade last June.

It was just months after Roe's fall that a coalition of anti-abortion doctors and associations, represented by the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas, challenging the FDA's assessment of mifepristone's safety and effectiveness.

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump-appointee, ruled in favor of the group on April 7. He stated the FDA exceeded its authority when it approved the drug back in 2000.

Kacsmaryk's order was partially blocked by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, though that court imposed restrictions that would prevent mifepristone from being sent to patients by mail.

The Biden administration and Danco Labs, the manufacturer of mifepristone, warned of possible wide-ranging consequences if the federal agency's expertise were to be second-guessed.

"If allowed to take effect, the lower courts' orders would thwart FDA's scientific judgment and undermine widespread reliance in a healthcare system that assumes the availability of mifepristone as an alternative to more burdensome and invasive surgical abortions," Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the Supreme Court in a filing this week.

Alliance Defending Freedom, representing opponents to the abortion pill, countered the administration's concerns amounted to a "sky-is-falling-argument."

"If this litigation involved any other drug, there would not even be a debate as to whether this Court should intervene mid-litigation stream with extraordinary relief," attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom wrote in a filing to the court.

The case has divided the nation, with more than 150 Republican lawmakers supporting the conservative plaintiffs. Democrats and leading medical associations, on the other hand, have pushed for mifepristone's continued availability.

Some states and abortion providers have been stockpiling abortion drugs as the legal battle plays out.