Most pro-lifers think primarily of abortion clinics and the grotesque surgical procedure designed to take the life of an unborn child. But half of the abortions taking place in the U.S. don’t require women to visit an abortion clinic or even leave the comfort of their own homes.

Since 2000, just under 6 million women have ended their pregnancies by taking a little white pill called mifepristone. That drug has come under fire in the last year after the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a group of pro-life doctors, sued the Food and Drug Administration for its failure to properly test and approve the drug for use in women. That’s just one of the cases the U.S. Supreme Court could hear in the 2023–2024 term, which begins on Monday. (READ MORE: Abortionist Remains Free While Biden Admin Convicts Pro-life Heroes)

The Biden Justice Department and Danco Laboratories, which manufactures mifepristone, requested the court review the case earlier this month after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration that the FDA’s decision to ease restrictions on the drug in 2016 was based on a flawed approval process.

The 5th Circuit’s decision has been blocked from taking effect by an order from the Supreme Court in April, which allowed the case to work its way through the courts. The order already required the Supreme Court to review the case before it could take effect.

If upheld, the ruling would require the drug to be subject to the regulations the FDA released in 2016; women would have to be physically examined at a doctor’s office prior to obtaining the pill, and the drug would no longer be available via mail order — a rather low bar for a drug that necessarily results in at least one death.

According to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the organization defending the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the drug’s approval process has been flawed from the start. In a video posted on the ADF’s website, Dr. Christina Francis argues that President Bill Clinton pressured the FDA to approve mifepristone back in 2000. (READ MORE: How Lindsey Graham Sabotaged the Pro-Life Movement Post Dobbs)

In its summary of the case, ADF wrote:

The FDA never studied the safety of the drugs under the labeled conditions of use, ignored the potential impacts of the hormone-blocking regimen on the developing bodies of adolescent girls, disregarded the substantial evidence that chemical abortion drugs cause more complications than surgical abortions, and eliminated necessary safeguards for pregnant girls and women who undergo this dangerous drug regimen.

In an interview with EWTN, the lawyer involved with the case, Julie Blake, said that “thousands if not hundreds of thousands of women have been hurt from complications from chemical abortion drugs,” adding that side effects have included “life-threatening bleeding” and infertility.

While the Supreme Court’s decision would certainly impact the U.S. abortion industry, it could also have an impact on how lower courts interact with the FDA — allowing them to hold the FDA accountable if they find that the agency failed to properly approve drugs.