The fate of a commonly used abortion pill is again before the Supreme Court, more than a year and a half after it said it would leave the matter of abortion to elected officials.

The Biden administration had asked the justices to hear a challenge to the drug’s availability after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit curtailed access to the drug. It had ruled in August that the pill should remain legal in the country but with significant restrictions on patients’ access to it.

That ruling has been temporarily suspended from going into effect while the Supreme Court considers the case.

The battle over the medication could have wide-ranging consequences for access to the drug even in states where abortion is legal, as well as for the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory authority over other drugs.

Here’s the latest on what is in play.

What’s at stake?

At issue is the availability of mifepristone, the first pill taken in a two-drug regimen for medication abortion that is currently used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States. More than five million women in the United States have used mifepristone to terminate their pregnancies, and dozens of other countries have approved the drug for use.

After the Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion in the United States in June 2022, a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations filed suit against the F.D.A. seeking to invalidate its approval of mifepristone more than two decades ago and to have the pill withdrawn from the market. The plaintiffs claim that mifepristone is unsafe and that the agency’s approval process for the drug was flawed.