The interim stay, ordered Friday by Justice Samuel Alito, blocked a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to prevent access to mifepristone and was intended to give the nine justices a few extra days to consider the merits of the case.

Previously, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk sided with anti-abortion groups and suspended the government’s approval of the drug on April 7, threatening its availability nationwide and setting up a legal battle on the floor of the nation’s highest court.

The case now comes before the same conservative majority that overturned Roe vs. Wade last June, barring the constitutional right to an abortion after it had been legal for 50 years.

Since that ruling, nearly two dozen Republican-led states have enacted abortion bans and restrictions, while at least 14 legislatures across the country have also placed limits on abortion medications.

Abortion pills and related procedures, however, remain legal in many other states that have not moved to change existing laws.

“And now, we’re faced with the very real possibility that mifepristone could be banned across the country, even in states where abortion is legal,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a series of statements posted to Twitter Tuesday.

Mifepristone has been widely used for more than two decades to terminate early pregnancies and treat complications due to miscarriages.

But Kacsmaryk ruled the Food and Drug Administration had rushed the approval of the abortion drug when it came on the market during the Clinton administration.

As a result, several states — including California, New York and Massachusetts — have taken action to stock up on abortion medications while the courts have been tied up with the ongoing legal challenges.

Legal observers widely agree the anti-abortion lawsuit lacks merit and that it was strategically filed in the Northern District of Texas, where it would come up for a hearing before Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump.

“An activist judge defied decades of scientific evidence to revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone,” Durbin said, adding that plaintiffs in the case had “gamed the legal system” by bringing the case before Kacsmaryk.

Biden administration lawyers appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled last week that mifepristone could remain available amid ongoing litigation while also imposing considerable restrictions that would eliminate access to the drug after the seventh week of pregnancy and curtail mail deliveries and the ability of non-physicians to administer the drug.

The Justice Department appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, where Alito is in charge of applications for emergency relief from the Fifth Circuit.

Government attorneys and anti-abortion advocates faced a Tuesday deadline to respond to the court.

Previously, lawyers for both sides laid out their cases in hearings on the legal standing of the suit and whether an injunction on the drug was in the public interest.

Meanwhile, an injunction issued last Thursday by U.S. District Judge Thomas G. Rice protecting access to mifepristone in Washington and 17 other states “remained in full force,” according to Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

The states covered under Rice’s order are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Washington state, along with Washington, D.C.