Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-235_n7ip.pdf
Page Number: 3

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

3 

Syllabus 

establish Article III standing.  Pp. 13–24.

(1) Plaintiffs  first  contend  that  FDA’s  relaxed  regulation  of 
mifepristone  may  cause  downstream  conscience  injuries  to  the 
individual doctors.  Even assuming that FDA’s 2016 and 2021 changes 
to  mifepristone’s  conditions  of  use  cause  more  pregnant  women  to 
require emergency abortions and that some women would likely seek
treatment from these plaintiff doctors, the plaintiff doctors have not 
shown that they could be forced to participate in an abortion or provide 
abortion-related  medical  treatment  over  their  conscience  objections. 
Federal  conscience  laws  definitively  protect  doctors  from  being 
required  to  perform  abortions  or  to  provide  other  treatment  that 
Federal  law  protects  doctors  from 
violates  their  consciences. 
repercussions when they have “refused” to participate in an abortion. 
§300a–7(c)(1).  The plaintiffs have not identified any instances where 
a  doctor  was  required,  notwithstanding  conscience  objections,  to
perform  an  abortion  or  to  provide  other  abortion-related  treatment 
that  violated  the  doctor’s  conscience  since  mifepristone’s  2000 
approval.  Further, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act 
(or EMTALA) neither overrides federal conscience laws nor requires 
individual  emergency  room  doctors  to  participate  in  emergency 
abortions.  Thus, there is a break in any chain of causation between
FDA’s relaxed regulation of mifepristone and any asserted conscience 
injuries to the doctors.  Pp. 14–17. 

(2) Plaintiffs  next  assert  they  have  standing  because  FDA’s
relaxed  regulation  of  mifepristone  may  cause  downstream  economic
injuries to the doctors.  The doctors cite various monetary and related 
injuries that they will allegedly suffer as a result of FDA’s actions—in
particular, diverting resources and time from other patients to treat 
patients  with  mifepristone  complications;  increasing  risk  of  liability
suits  from  treating  those  patients;  and  potentially  increasing
insurance costs.  But the causal link between FDA’s regulatory actions
in 2016 and 2021 and those alleged injuries is too speculative, lacks 
support  in  the  record,  and  is  otherwise  too  attenuated  to  establish 
standing.  Moreover, the law has never permitted doctors to challenge
the  government’s  loosening  of  general  public  safety  requirements
simply  because  more  individuals  might  then  show  up  at  emergency 
rooms  or  in  doctors’  offices  with  follow-on  injuries.  Citizens  and 
doctors who object to what the law allows others to do may always take
their  concerns  to  the  Executive  and  Legislative  Branches  and  seek 
greater regulatory or legislative restrictions.  Pp. 18–21.

(3) Plaintiff medical associations assert their own organizational 
standing.    Under  the  Court’s  precedents,  organizations  may  have 
standing “to sue on their own behalf for injuries they have sustained,” 
Havens  Realty  Corp.  v.  Coleman,  455  U. S.  363,  379,  n. 19,  but