argument essay ap us gov

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Lesson Plan: AP Government: Argumentative Essay Practice

The Federalist Papers

Boston College professor Mary Sarah Bilder gives a brief overview backgrounding the Federalist Papers

Description

This is intended as an end-of-course review activity for practice with the argumentative essay format included on the AP United States Government and Politics exam since the 2018 redesign. Eleven practice prompts are provided, reflecting content from Units 1-3.

ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY PROMPT ANALYSIS

• Review the provided Argumentative Essay Prompts in either an individual or jigsaw format.
• Write a thesis statement for your selected prompt(s) and identify the selection you would make from the provided list and the second piece of evidence you would choose.
• If there are prompts for which you struggle to develop a thesis, or items on the bulleted lists with which you are not conversant, use the hyperlinked C-SPAN Classroom resources to extend your understanding of the required founding documents and SCOTUS cases that you found challenging.

ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

• Chose one or more of the provided Argumentative Essay Prompts , as assigned, and use the planning and exploration you did above to write a full essay in response to your designated prompt(s) in 25 or fewer minutes , since that's the time limit you'll face on the AP Exam!
• Exchange essays with a classmate and evaluate each others' work.
• 1st Amendment
• Branches Of Government
• Constitution
• House Of Representatives
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How to Write the AP Lang Argument Essay + Examples

What’s covered:, what is the ap language argument essay, tips for writing the ap language argument essay, ap english language argument essay examples, how will ap scores impact my college chances.

In 2023, over 550,148 students across the U.S. took the AP English Language and Composition Exam, and 65.2% scored higher than a 3. The AP English Language Exam tests your ability to analyze a piece of writing, synthesize information, write a rhetorical essay, and create a cohesive argument. In this post, we’ll be discussing the best way to approach the argumentative essay section of the test, and we’ll give you tips and tricks so you can write a great essay.

The AP English Language Exam as of 2023 is structured as follows:

Section 1: 45 multiple choice questions to be completed in an hour. This portion counts for 45% of your score. This section requires students to analyze a piece of literature. The questions ask about its content and/or what could be edited within the passage.

Section 2: Three free response questions to be completed in the remaining two hours and 15 minutes. This section counts for 55% of your score. These essay questions include the synthesis essay, the rhetorical essay, and the argumentative essay.

• Synthesis essay: Read 6-7 sources and create an argument using at least three of the sources.
• Rhetorical analysis essay: Describe how a piece of writing evokes meaning and symbolism.
• Argumentative essay: Pick a side of a debate and create an argument based on evidence. In this essay, you should develop a logical argument in support of or against the given statement and provide ample evidence that supports your conclusion. Typically, a five paragraph format is great for this type of writing. This essay is scored holistically from 1 to 9 points.

Do you want more information on the structure of the full exam? Take a look at our in-depth overview of the AP Language and Composition Exam .

Although the AP Language Argument may seem daunting at first, once you understand how the essay should be structured, it will be a lot easier to create cohesive arguments.

Below are some tips to help you as you write the essay.

1. Organize your essay before writing

Instead of jumping right into your essay, plan out what you will say beforehand. It’s easiest to make a list of your arguments and write out what facts or evidence you will use to support each argument. In your outline, you can determine the best order for your arguments, especially if they build on each other or are chronological. Having a well-organized essay is crucial for success.

2. Pick one side of the argument, but acknowledge the other side

When you write the essay, it’s best if you pick one side of the debate and stick with it for the entire essay. All your evidence should be in support of that one side. However, in your introductory paragraph, as you introduce the debate, be sure to mention any merit the arguments of the other side has. This can make the essay a bit more nuanced and show that you did consider both sides before determining which one was better. Often, acknowledging another viewpoint then refuting it can make your essay stronger.

3. Provide evidence to support your claims

The AP readers will be looking for examples and evidence to support your argument. This doesn’t mean that you need to memorize a bunch of random facts before the exam. This just means that you should be able to provide concrete examples in support of your argument.

For example, if the essay topic is about whether the role of the media in society has been detrimental or not, and you argue that it has been, you may talk about the phenomenon of “fake news” during the 2016 presidential election.

AP readers are not looking for perfect examples, but they are looking to see if you can provide enough evidence to back your claim and make it easily understood.

4. Create a strong thesis statement

The thesis statement will set up your entire essay, so it’s important that it is focused and specific, and that it allows for the reader to understand your body paragraphs. Make sure your thesis statement is the very last sentence of your introductory paragraph. In this sentence, list out the key points you will be making in the essay in the same order that you will be writing them. Each new point you mention in your thesis should start a paragraph in your essay.

Below is a prompt and sample student essay from the May 2019 exam . We’ll look at what the student did well in their writing and where they could improve.

Prompt: “The term “overrated” is often used to diminish concepts, places, roles, etc. that the speaker believes do not deserve the prestige they commonly enjoy; for example, many writers have argued that success is overrated, a character in a novel by Anthony Burgess famously describes Rome as a “vastly overrated city,” and Queen Rania of Jordan herself has asserted that “[b]eing queen is overrated.”

Select a concept, place, role, etc. to which you believe that the term “overrated” should be applied. Then, write a well-developed essay in which you explain your judgment. Use appropriate evidence from your reading, experience, or observations to support your argument.

Sample Student Essay #1:

[1] Competition is “overrated.” The notion of motivation between peers has evolved into a source of unnecessary stress and even lack of morals. Whether it be in an academic environment or in the industry, this new idea of competition is harmful to those competing and those around them.

[2] Back in elementary school, competition was rather friendly. It could have been who could do the most pushups or who could get the most imaginary points in a classroom for a prize. If you couldn’t do the most pushups or win that smelly sticker, you would go home and improve yourself – there would be no strong feelings towards anyone, you would just focus on making yourself a better version of yourself. Then as high school rolled around, suddenly applying for college doesn’t seem so far away –GPA seems to be that one stat that defines you – extracurriculars seem to shape you – test scores seem to categorize you. Sleepless nights, studying for the next day’s exam, seem to become more and more frequent. Floating duck syndrome seems to surround you (FDS is where a competitive student pretends to not work hard but is furiously studying beneath the surface just like how a duck furiously kicks to stay afloat). All of your competitors appear to hope you fail – but in the end what do you and your competitor’s gain? Getting one extra point on the test? Does that self-satisfaction compensate for the tremendous amounts of acquired stress? This new type of “competition” is overrated – it serves nothing except a never-ending source of anxiety and seeks to weaken friendships and solidarity as a whole in the school setting.

[3] A similar idea of “competition” can be applied to business. On the most fundamental level, competition serves to be a beneficial regulator of prices and business models for both the business themselves and consumers. However, as businesses grew increasingly greedy and desperate, companies resorted to immoral tactics that only hurt their reputations and consumers as a whole. Whether it be McDonald’s coupons that force you to buy more food or tech companies like Apple intentionally slowing down your iPhone after 3 years to force you to upgrade to the newest device, consumers suffer and in turn speak down upon these companies. Similar to the evolved form of competition in school, this overrated form causes pain for all parties and has since diverged from the encouraging nature that the principle of competition was “founded” on.

The AP score for this essay was a 4/6, meaning that it captured the main purpose of the essay but there were still substantial parts missing. In this essay, the writer did a good job organizing the sections and making sure that their writing was in order according to the thesis statement. The essay first discusses how competition is harmful in elementary school and then discusses this topic in the context of business. This follows the chronological order of somebody’s life and flows nicely.

The arguments in this essay are problematic, as they do not provide enough examples of how exactly competition is overrated. The essay discusses the context in which competition is overrated but does not go far enough in explaining how this connects to the prompt.

In the first example, school stress is used to explain how competition manifests. This is a good starting point, but it does not talk about why competition is overrated; it simply mentions that competition can be unhealthy. The last sentence of that paragraph is the main point of the argument and should be expanded to discuss how the anxiety of school is overrated later on in life. 

In the second example, the writer discusses how competition can lead to harmful business practices, but again, this doesn’t reflect the reason this would be overrated. Is competition really overrated because Apple and McDonald’s force you to buy new products? This example could’ve been taken one step farther. Instead of explaining why business structures—such as monopolies—harm competition, the author should discuss how those particular structures are overrated.

Additionally, the examples the writer used lack detail. A stronger essay would’ve provided more in-depth examples. This essay seemed to mention examples only in passing without using them to defend the argument.

It should also be noted that the structure of the essay is incomplete. The introduction only has a thesis statement and no additional context. Also, there is no conclusion paragraph that sums up the essay. These missing components result in a 4/6.

Now let’s go through the prompt for a sample essay from the May 2022 exam . The prompt is as follows:

Colin Powell, a four-star general and former United States Secretary of State, wrote in his 1995 autobiography: “[W]e do not have the luxury of collecting information indefinitely. At some point, before we can have every possible fact in hand, we have to decide. The key is not to make quick decisions, but to make timely decisions.”

Write an essay that argues your position on the extent to which Powell’s claim about making decisions is valid. 

In your response you should do the following:

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible position. 
• Provide evidence to support your line of reasoning. 
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning. 
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

Sample Student Essay #2:

Colin Powell, who was a four star general and a former United States Secretary of State. He wrote an autobiography and had made a claim about making decisions. In my personal opinion, Powell’s claim is true to full extent and shows an extremely valuable piece of advice that we do not consider when we make decisions.

Powell stated, “before we can have every possible fact in hand we have to decide…. but to make it a timely decision” (1995). With this statement Powell is telling the audience of his autobiography that it does not necessarily matter how many facts you have, and how many things you know. Being able to have access to everything possible takes a great amount of time and we don’t always have all of the time in the world. A decision has to be made with what you know, waiting for something else to come in while trying to make a decision whether that other fact is good or bad you already have a good amount of things that you know. Everyone’s time is valuable, including yours. At the end of the day the decision will have to be made and that is why it should be made in a “timely” manner.

This response was graded for a score of 2/6. Let’s break down the score to smaller points that signify where the student fell short.

The thesis in this essay is clearly outlined at the end of the first paragraph. The student states their agreement with Powell’s claim and frames the rest of their essay around this stance. The success in scoring here lies in the clear communication of the thesis and the direction the argument will take. It’s important to make the thesis statement concise, specific, and arguable, which the student has successfully done.

While the student did attempt to provide evidence to support their thesis, it’s clear that their explanation lacks specific detail and substance. They referenced Powell’s statement, but did not delve into how this statement has proven true in specific instances, and did not provide examples that could bring the argument to life.

Commentary is an essential part of this section’s score. It means explaining the significance of the evidence and connecting it back to the thesis. Unfortunately, the student’s commentary here is too vague and does not effectively elaborate on how the evidence supports their argument.

To improve, the student could use more concrete examples to demonstrate their point and discuss how each piece of evidence supports their thesis. For instance, they could discuss specific moments in Powell’s career where making a timely decision was more valuable than waiting for all possible facts. This would help illustrate the argument in a more engaging, understandable way.

A high score in the “sophistication” category of the grading rubric is given for demonstrating a complex understanding of the rhetorical situation (purpose, audience, context, etc.), making effective rhetorical choices, or establishing a line of reasoning. Here, the student’s response lacks complexity and sophistication. They’ve simply agreed with Powell’s claim and made a few general statements without providing a deeper analysis or effectively considering the rhetorical situation.

To increase sophistication, the student could explore possible counterarguments or complexities within Powell’s claim. They could discuss potential drawbacks of making decisions without all possible facts, or examine situations where timely decisions might not yield the best results. By acknowledging and refuting these potential counterarguments, they could add more depth to their analysis and showcase their understanding of the complexities involved in decision-making.

The student could also analyze why Powell, given his background and experiences, might have come to such a conclusion, thus providing more context and showing an understanding of the rhetorical situation.

Remember, sophistication in argumentation isn’t about using fancy words or complicated sentences. It’s about showing that you understand the complexity of the issue at hand and that you’re able to make thoughtful, nuanced arguments. Sophistication shows that you can think critically about the topic and make connections that aren’t immediately obvious.

Now that you’ve looked at an example essay and some tips for the argumentative essay, you know how to better prepare for the AP English Language and Composition Exam.

While your AP scores don’t usually impact your admissions chances , colleges do care a lot about your course rigor. So, taking as many APs as you can will certainly boost your chances! AP scores can be a way for high-performing students to set themselves apart, particularly when applying to prestigious universities. Through the process of self-reporting scores , you can show your hard work and intelligence to admissions counselors.

That said, the main benefit of scoring high on AP exams comes once you land at your dream school, as high scores can allow you to “test out” of entry-level requirements, often called GE requirements or distribution requirements. This will save you time and money.

To understand how your course rigor stacks up, check out CollegeVine’s free chancing engine . This resource takes your course rigor, test scores, extracurriculars, and more, to determine your chances of getting into over 1600 colleges across the country!

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How German Atheists Made America Great Again

Taken together, two new books tell the century-long story of the revolutionary ideals that transformed the United States, and the counterrevolutionaries who fought them.

By S. C. Gwynne

S.C. Gwynne is the author of “Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War.”

AN EMANCIPATION OF THE MIND: Radical Philosophy, the War Over Slavery, and the Refounding of America, by Matthew Stewart

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SECOND AMERICAN REPUBLIC: Reconstruction, 1860-1920, by Manisha Sinha

What was the Civil War about? In a word, slavery.

What actually caused the war, however, is a vastly more difficult idea. Try this explanation on for size: The driving force in American politics in the decades after the American Revolution was the rise of an arrogant, ruthless, parasitic oligarchy in the South, built on a foundation of Christian religion and a vision of permanent, God-ordained economic inequality.

Though much of the South was poor, this new aristocracy was vastly rich. Two-thirds of all estates in the United States worth more than $100,000 were in the hands of Southern white men. Their goal in seceding was to undo the basic ideals of the American republic and keep their wealth.

These counterrevolutionaries — for that is what they were — insisted that men were by divine design unequal , both racially and economically. To fight this notion and crush what amounted to an existential threat to democracy, the antislavery movement needed ideas as much as, ultimately, guns.

That’s the narrative that frames Matthew Stewart’s engaging and often surprising new book, “An Emancipation of the Mind. ” The title refers to the rise of new ways of thinking in the antislavery movement, what Stewart calls “the philosophical origins of America’s second revolution.”

The most significant ideas that Stewart traces are religious. From 1770 to 1860, religion in America underwent a massive shift. The number of churches exploded, North and South. Soon, most of these churches, using clear and manifold endorsements of slavery from the Bible (“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ”), were promoting and actively defending the slave republic.

As the antislavery crowd soon learned, it was impossible to spin “slavery is sin” arguments against biblical literalism. Ending slavery, Stewart says, “was hardly part of God’s plan.” This wasn’t just a Southern opinion: Three out of five clerics who published pro-slavery books and articles were educated at Northern divinity schools. Two decades before the outbreak of war, abolitionism was still a skulking pariah, a despised minority in the North as well as the South.

The abolitionists clearly needed help. Enter the Germans, specifically the freethinking Germans whose radical republican philosophy underpinned the failed European revolutions of 1848. “Freidenkers’’ like the theologian David Friedrich Strauss and the philosopher and anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach formulated ideas of the laws of nature and “nature’s God” that were at odds with the tenets of Christianity.

A large group of German intellectuals, fresh from the battles of 1848, arrived on American shores, joined the abolitionist movement and radicalized it. As he did in his 2014 book “Nature’s God,” which traced the way that the heretical philosophies of Spinoza and Lucretius influenced American founders like Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, Stewart here argues convincingly that these philosophers found willing listeners in the persons of Abraham Lincoln, who kept Strauss and Feuerbach on his shelf; Frederick Douglass, who saw American Christianity as “the bulwark of slavery”; and the abolitionist firebrand Theodore Parker, whose lectures reached as many as 100,000 people a year in the 1850s.

Wasn’t much of this simply revolutionary atheism? Yes, it was, and it’s a bit of a shock to find out how close Lincoln and Douglass were to these ideas, though they paid lip service to more conventional Christian beliefs when translating them for the public.

The other big idea here — also with help from the Germans, especially Karl Marx (a great admirer of Lincoln, who, Stewart argues, liked him too) — has to do with the economics of slavery. “At the root of the ills of the slave system,” writes Stewart, “lies the extreme economic inequality that it inevitably produces — not just between races but among the white population.”

Between 1852 and 1862, Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote 487 articles for The New York Daily Tribune; Lincoln likely read them . They explained the war as “nothing but a struggle between two social systems, the system of slavery and the system of free labor.”

After the war came Reconstruction. How do you deconstruct Reconstruction? Very, very carefully. It’s one of the toughest, most maddeningly complicated tasks in the writing of American history. That’s because Reconstruction — the word we use to denote the failed post-Civil War attempt to build a more inclusive country — unfolded in different ways in different states, on different timetables and with a wildly proliferating cast of players.

In her new book, “The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic,” the historian Manisha Sinha not only has taken on this vast subject, but has greatly expanded its definition, both temporally and spatially. Her Reconstruction embraces the Progressive Era, women’s suffrage, the final wars against Native Americans, immigration and even U.S. imperialism in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries. She covers these difficult issues with remarkable skill and clarity.

In Sinha’s telling, the achievements of Reconstruction — we are in the latter 1860s and early 1870s here — are truly amazing. The federal decision to use the Army against recalcitrant ex-Confederates to secure rights for Black people resulted, she writes, in “a brief, shining historical moment when abolition democracy triumphed in much of the South and across the rest of the nation,” which “meant the inauguration of a progressive, interracial democracy.”

These years saw the passage of constitutional amendments that guaranteed citizenship, equal protection under the law and the vote for Black men. They also saw the rise of a powerful Freedmen’s Bureau, Black voting on a massive scale and the election of thousands of Black representatives to national, state and local office. More than 600 Black politicians were elected in the South to state legislatures alone.

Black Americans and freedpeople, Sinha reminds us, were themselves behind much of this change, a process she calls “grass-roots reconstruction.” As she laid out in her 2016 book “ The Slave’s Cause ,” and shows more briefly here, they documented atrocities and pushed to have them exposed, filed petitions, swore out affidavits at the risk of their lives and formed political organizations and lobbies.

But the Second American Republic would soon come crashing down, the victim of another violent counterrevolution whose principal weapons were racial terror and political assassination. In its place rose a New South, where class distinctions were shored up, where the government was by and for white men and where the belief that Black people were inferior to white people was firmly in place. Instead of economic freedom, Americans got debt peonage, stolen wages, criminalized self-employment and a convict leasing system. The great flowering of education during Reconstruction was trampled too as terrorists burned down more than 600 Black schools.

Sinha tells these stories well. She also pushes out beyond the conventionally defined subjects of Reconstruction. In her account, the ascendancy of Jim Crow and the conquest of the West, among other forms of repression, are profoundly connected, and not only because the government failed to protect Black liberty as well as Indigenous land rights and sovereignty. The Army that was raised to fight Southern counterrevolutionaries was redeployed in the West to subjugate Indians. The literacy requirements used to disenfranchise Black Americans in the South also proved effective in targeting immigrants and working-class people in the North.

Still, the ideals of the Second Republic did not completely wither on the vine. Sinha convincingly advances her vision of Reconstruction all the way forward to 1920, when the 19th Amendment granted women’s suffrage. That landmark event was inspired by the marquee equal rights amendments of the Reconstruction era, which, Sinha writes, “bequeathed a legacy of political activism and progressive constitutionalism” on the movement, a breath of air that gave America new life.

AN EMANCIPATION OF THE MIND : Radical Philosophy, the War Over Slavery, and the Refounding of America | By Matthew Stewart | Norton | 374 pp. | $32.50

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SECOND AMERICAN REPUBLIC : Reconstruction, 1860-1920 | By Manisha Sinha | Liveright | 562 pp. | $39.99

Supreme Court hears mifepristone arguments as protests gather outside: Highlights

What to know about today's hearing.

• The Supreme Court heard a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration's decisions over the past several years to increase women's access to mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortions, including making it available by mail. Many of the justices appeared to be questioning whether abortion opponents would have standing to sue over the decisions.
• A Texas-based U.S. district judge invalidated the FDA's approval of the pill last year, but an appeals court narrowed the decision to include only actions the agency has taken since 2016. Because the Supreme Court is not reviewing the FDA's initial approval of the drug, the medication will remain available in some form.
• Fourteen states completely ban abortion , including medication abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, while several others prohibit delivering the abortion pill by mail and require patients to see a doctor in person before they can get a prescription for it.
• About two-thirds of abortions in the United States were carried out by use of the pill in 2023, the research group says.

Abortion providers react to Supreme Court hearing

Aria Bendix

Abortion providers responded to today's oral arguments by emphasizing the safety and effectiveness of mifepristone, stressing that reduced access to the drug could threaten public health.

“The very existence of this case puts every other FDA-approved medication at risk of being taken off the market or restricted for political reasons,” Alexis McGill Johnson, CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. 

Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider with in-person clinics in four states, said her virtual clinic will continue to offer abortion pills by mail while the court considers the case.

“This cruel and baseless lawsuit is designed to intimidate and confuse Americans," Miller said in a statement. "This case is not about health and safety; it’s about power and control. Here is the truth: medication abortions are safe and effective.”

Evan Masingill, CEO of GenBioPro, the generic manufacturer of mifepristone, said Tuesday that the company “will continue to use every legal and regulatory avenue to protect access” to the drug.

New York attorney general speaks at rally for abortion pill access outside Supreme Court

New York Attorney General Letitia James joined abortion rights supporters during a protest outside the Supreme Court today.

Erin Hawley spotted outside of the Supreme Court near protesters

Diana Paulsen

Summer Concepcion

After delivering oral arguments before the Supreme Court, Erin Hawley was seen outside of the court near protesters, flanked by two bodyguards.

Anti-abortion protesters gather outside Supreme Court

Several protesters outside the Supreme Court during arguments today were calling for an end to abortion altogether.

"I hope one day we can live in a United States that is abortion-free in all 50 states," said Melanie Salazar, an anti-abortion activist who traveled from San Francisco.

Constance Becker, from Ohio, echoed that she “would love to see pills go” away.

"There are all types of people who are against abortion," Becker said. "I’m progressive. I’m a Democrat. I’m not a Republican, and I am against abortion."

Felipe Avila, communications director for the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses, said he'd like to see a requirement for in-person doctors visits for medication abortions.

"If chemical abortions are available for women, they should be safe," he said. "So we want those safeguards in place."

Supreme Court skeptical of effort to make abortion pill harder to obtain

Lawrence Hurley Supreme Court reporter

WASHINGTON — The  Supreme Court  on Tuesday appeared likely to reject a challenge to the abortion pill mifepristone, with a number of justices indicating the lawsuit should be dismissed.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, heard oral arguments on the Biden administration’s appeal of lower court rulings that restricted women’s access to the pill, including its availability by mail.

But during the arguments, there was little discussion of whether the Food and Drug Administration’s decisions to lift restrictions on the drug were unlawful.

Instead, the justices focused on whether the group of anti-abortion doctors who brought the lawsuit even had legal standing to bring the claim. The plaintiffs, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group, argue that the FDA failed to adequately evaluate the drug’s safety risks.

But justices probed whether the doctors could show that they were directly injured merely because they object to abortion and could be required to give emergency room treatment to a woman suffering from serious side effects.

Several justices also noted that doctors who oppose abortion can already object based on their personal beliefs to assisting patients suffering from abortion-related side effects.

“Under federal law, no doctors can be forced against their consciences to perform or assist in an abortion, correct?” conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked at one point.

Read the full story here.

Sen. Josh Hawley was in court for his wife's arguments

Sen. Josh Hawley was in attendance during his wife’s arguments on behalf of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which is suing the FDA.

The Republican senator from Missouri and his wife, both of whom graduated from Yale Law School, met while they clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.

Jackson repeatedly asked about the deference courts should pay the FDA

In her questioning today, Jackson repeatedly asked iterations of whether courts owe any deference to the opinion of the expert agency concerning the safety and efficacy of drugs. In her response, Hawley said the defendants are not asking the court to second-guess FDA determinations at all, but rather to look at what the FDA has said.

After Jackson said she doesn’t understand how that scope of review is not, in fact, second-guessing the FDA, Hawley pushed back, saying she didn't think that’s an accurate portrayal and that the FDA’s statements in 2016 and 2021 were “arbitrary.”

Danco lawyer pushes back against justices citing debunked scientific studies

After being questioned by Justice Alito about the potential adverse consequences of mifepristone, Ellsworth said she had “significant concerns” about justices parsing medical and scientific studies.

Ellsworth said the Texas district court’s ruling relied on an analysis of anonymous blog posts and another set of studies that have since been retracted. 

“Those sorts of errors can infect judicial analyses precisely because judges are not — they are not experts in statistics, they are not experts in the methodology used for scientific studies for clinical trials,” Ellsworth said.

The district court’s ruling cited statistics from an analysis of anonymous posts about negative abortion experiences on the website Abortion Changes You. The study’s co-author is a senior research associate at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an anti-abortion group.

The ruling also cited two studies supported by the Charlotte Lozier Institute that claimed to find harms associated with abortion. The publisher, Sage Perspectives, retracted both studies after an independent review found the conclusions weren’t valid.

Oral arguments conclude

Today's oral arguments before the Supreme Court have ended.

Prelogar offers a rebuttal to Hawley

Rebecca Shabad is in Washington, D.C.

The solicitor general is offering a rebuttal to Hawley's argument, arguing that the doctors she represents don't have any clear harms and so the standing argument is speculative.

She also said the doctors group that Hawley represents doesn't have organizational standing and the remedy is overly broad.

Thomas, Alito bring back focus on Comstock Act

Thomas and Alito are questioning Hawley about the relevance of the Comstock Act.

Gorsuch questions a nationwide injunction

Gorsuch raised the possibility of this case turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide injunction on an FDA rule or any other federal government action.

Hawley said she thinks it’s impractical to raise a conscientious objection, but that the district court remedy was appropriate under Section 705, which grants the authority for courts to issue necessary and appropriate relief.

Asked why the court can’t specify that this relief runs to the parties before the court as opposed to looking to the FDA in general, Hawley said the only availability for relief from nonregulated parties is if the court does something to the FDA order or regulation at issue.

Most of the justices, including Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, seem skeptical of her argument.

Kagan grills Hawley on conscience objections by anti-abortion doctors

Justice Elena Kagan drilled down again on the conscience objections of anti-abortion doctors Hawley represents.

Hawley said one of the doctors, for example, had to perform a surgical abortion (a D&C) because of a "life-threatening emergency."

"And did she have an opportunity to object?" Kagan asked.

"No, your honor," Hawley said. "Again, these are life-threatening situations in which the choice for a doctor is either to scrub out and try to find someone else or treat the woman."

Kagan says that most hospitals have mechanisms or routines in place "to ensure" doctors can make objections to performing certain procedures in advance.

"There's just nothing that you have there," Kagan says about Hawley's supporting arguments.

Jackson pushes Hawley on why doctors can't just refuse to treat patients

Jackson pushed Hawley on whether doctors couldn't just object to doing these procedures. Hawley argued that the emergency nature of these cases makes it impossible for doctors to lodge objections.

Jackson questioned whether the court has to "entertain your argument that no one in the world can have this drug ... in order to protect your clients."

Gorsuch followed up on Jackson's questioning, asking why this lawsuit was "turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule."

Danco lawyer presents argument

Attorney Jessica Ellsworth, who represents Danco, the manufacturer of mifepristone, argued that anti-abortion groups' view is "so inflexible it would upend not just Mifeprix, but virtually every drug approval" the FDA has made for decades.

The changes that the FDA made to the drug’s approved use in 2016 and 2021 — which made it easier to access — can't be linked to a possible harmful event in the future, Ellsworth argued.

Danco lawyer expresses concerns about judges making decisions on pharmaceuticals

Asked by Jackson whether she thinks courts have specialized scientific knowledge with respect to pharmaceuticals and if she has concerns about judges making decisions on them, Ellsworth said Danco has “significant concerns” on the matter, noting that those concerns are shared among pharmaceutical companies that depend on the FDA to approve their drugs.

As an example, Ellsworth mentioned that a district court relied on a study that was based on an analysis of anonymous blog posts and other studies that contain misleading presentations of data.

“Those sorts of errors can infect judicial analyses precisely because judges are not experts in statistics. They are not experts in the methodology used for scientific studies for clinical trials,” Ellsworth said. “That is why the FDA has many hundreds of pages of analysis in the record of what the scientific data showed, and courts are just not in a position to parse through and second-guess that.”

Hawley has begun her arguments

Erin Hawley has begun speaking. She is arguing on behalf of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a doctors group suing the FDA.

Thomas questions Danco lawyer about whether Comstock Act applies to company

Justice Thomas questioned Danco's lawyer, Jessica Ellsworth, about whether the Comstock Act applies to the company, as opposed to the federal government.

"How do you respond to an argument that mailing your product and advertising it would violate the Comstock Act?" Thomas asked.

Ellsworth said that FDA's charge under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act is limited to looking at safety and efficacy considerations.

"FDA routinely approves drugs whose manufacture and distribution is restricted by other laws, like the Controlled Substances Act, environmental laws, customs laws and so on," she said.

Thomas said that the statute doesn't cover drugs like Mifeprex.

"We disagree that that's the correct interpretation of the statute, but we think that in order to address the correct interpretation, there would need to be a situation in which that issue was actually teed up," Ellsworth said. "This statute has not been enforced for nearly 100 years."

Sotomayor asks about the difficulty of determining risk versus need for access

Asked by Alito about some studies that suggested more frequent emergency room visits related to the use of mifepristone, Prelogar said the FDA acknowledged that as a fact but found that the visits didn’t equate to additional adverse events. She noted that many women might go to the ER because they’re experiencing heavy bleeding, which mimics a miscarriage, and want to know whether they’re having complications.

Sotomayor then asked Prelogar about the FDA’s determinations concerning safety and efficacy of mifepristone.

“Whatever the statistical increase was, FDA determined under the rim standard, that it wasn’t sufficient to create a risk that counterbalances the need for access, correct?” Sotomayor asked.

Prelogar replied that’s correct because the FDA is instructed to take into account burdens on the health care delivery system and that it reviews a variety of sources of data to make conclusions, with the burdens that were suggested were not necessary to keep restrictions in place.

Jackson focuses again on issue of standing

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson again raised the issue of standing and Prelogar repeated her argument about raising conscience objections as the remedy.

Health complications from medication abortions are rare

The standard two-pill regimen for a medication abortion — mifepristone followed by misoprostol — has a 0.4% risk of major complications . 

In very rare cases, abortion pills may cause blood clots in the uterus, heavy bleeding or infection — but, according to Planned Parenthood , the overall risks are lower than with other medications like penicillin, Tylenol or Viagra.

Misoprostol is also safe to take on its own , but it's slightly less effective than the two-drug combo and could cause more uncomfortable side effects, such as intense nausea, diarrhea, chills, vomiting or cramping.

Barrett questions possible increase in complications due to telemedicine

Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned Prelogar on whether a lack of ultrasound before prescribing mifepristone could increase complications. Prelogar responded that even before telemedicine consultations were allowed for prescribing mifepristone, most women received the pill without one and that there was not an associated rise in complications.

Kagan asks if this is the only time a court has overridden FDA judgment

Justice Elena Kagan asked if the Texas decision was the first time a court has overridden a judgment by the FDA.

Prelogar says she thinks so and argues courts have no business making those judgments.

What is the Comstock Act?

Justice Samuel Alito just questioned Prelogar about the Comstock Act, a 151-year-old law that prevents using the mail to send "obscene" materials.

This law has been used as part of the challenge to newer FDA regulations that allow mifepristone to be mailed to patients. Parts of the bill have been repealed, but the prohibition on abortion materials being mailed still stands.

Alito asks about three changes involving mifepristone making it more dangerous when taken together

Alito asked Prelogar if three changes the government made to the access of mifepristone make the drug's risks higher when taken together. Under the new guidance, patients only need one doctor visit versus three to obtain the drug. The guidance also allows patients up to 10 weeks gestation to take the drug and they're able to access the drug by mail.

"You say that the 5th Circuit didn't give any reason to think that the three changes made in 2016 would be more dangerous in combination than they were individually. But isn't that obvious?" Alito asked. "That three things that may be innocuous or not excessively dangerous, if engaged in by themselves may become very dangerous, when they're all done together?"

Prelogar said the only way that would be true "would be if the three changes are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, guarding against the same kind of safety risk."

"So I agree that if there were a reason to think that the reason why mifepristone is safe up to 10 weeks gestation is because it's being prescribed by doctors instead of nurse practitioners, for example, then those changes would be interconnected," she said.

She added, "But there was nothing like that in this record. The studies that FDA examined instead demonstrated that these changes — and it was an exhaustive examination — were safe, not because there were other different safeguards in place to guard against risks, but rather because if you go up to 10 weeks of gestation, there is no observable increase in serious adverse events, no matter who's prescribing."

Medication abortions spiked last year

Medication abortions accounted for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the formal U.S. health care system in 2023, according to a recent report from the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for abortion access. That's a 30% increase since 2020, when abortion pills made up 53% of the overall total.

The provision of medications for self-managed abortions outside the formal health care system also increased in the six months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to a study published Monday. From July to December 2022, there were an additional 27,800 instances of medication being provided for self-managed abortions compared to what was expected before Roe was reversed, the researchers estimated.

Solicitor general argues conscience protections would continue to apply for individual doctors who don’t want to provide care

Prelogar said the petitioners don’t think the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) would override conscientious protections for an individual doctor. She also noted that hospitals have a series of contingency plans in place such as staffing plans.

Prelogar acknowledged that as a matter of best practices, doctors are often asked to articulate their conscientious objections in advance so that it can be taken into account.

A smaller group of anti-abortion protesters gather outside the court

The protesters outside the court are mainly supportive of abortion access, but there are smaller groups of anti-abortion protesters.

The issue of standing is first up in questioning

Questioning has begun and Justice Clarence Thomas has begun with questions about standing. Standing refers to whether or not the group challenging the law actually faces harm from it and thus can sue.

The government is arguing that the physician group suing the FDA does not have standing, saying that "their theories rely on a long chain of remote contingencies." The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine has argued that physicians could potentially be harmed if they had to treat a patient who had adverse health effects from mifepristone.

Questions from the judges then focused on who would be able to sue if these groups could not. The government had a hard time coming up with a party that would have standing in this case.

Solicitor general warns of consequences of restricting mifepristone access

Prelogar argued in her opening remarks that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of plaintiffs and, as a result, restricts access to mifepristone, it would have profoundly negative effects on people.

She said it would "severely disrupt the federal system for developing and approving drugs," adding that it would harm the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry.

"It would also inflict grave harm on women across the nation," she said. "Rolling back FDA changes would unnecessarily restrict access to mifepristone with no safety justification. Some women could be forced to undergo more invasive surgical abortions. Others might not be able to access the drug at all."

She said the court "should reject that profoundly inequitable result."

Where is medication abortion legal right now?

Danica Jefferies

Access to the two drugs involved in a medication abortion is legal in some form in 36 states and Washington, D.C., according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that advocates for abortion access.

But 15 states limit who can prescribe medication abortions, and two states — Arizona and North Carolina — ban the mailing of abortion pills. Arizona, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin also require an in-person visit with a physician before the pills can be prescribed.

Oral arguments have begun, with solicitor general going first on behalf of Biden administration

Oral arguments have begun. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar is kicking them off, arguing on behalf of the Biden administration, and is allotted 20 minutes.

Jessica L. Ellsworth, a lawyer for Danco, which manufactures the brand name version of mifepristone, Mifeprex, will go next and is allotted 10 minutes for arguments.

Erin Hawley, wife of Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., will represent the Christian legal group challenging access to mifepristone, and will have 30 minutes to deliver arguments for the respondents.

Rare all-women lineup will deliver arguments before the Supreme Court today

Notably, all lawyers arguing today in support of and against the FDA's actions to increase access to mifepristone are women — an uncommon scenario in oral arguments before the Supreme Court.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar will represent the FDA in support of its moves to make mifepristone more accessible. Lawyer Jessica Ellsworth will also represent drug manufacturer Danco Laboratories.

Arguing against the petitioners is Erin Hawley, the wife of Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who is representing a group of doctors and other medical professionals opposed to the actions of the FDA on mifepristone access.

Crowds of protesters gather outside court, mainly in support of abortion rights

Laura Jarrett

Different pockets of rallies formed outside the Supreme Court building. Most appeared to be in favor of abortion rights, chanting over megaphones, but there are smaller groups of people with signs protesting against “chemical abortions” as well. The energy outside of the courthouse is vibrant. There has been a huge turnout with some people even sleeping on the sidewalks in line as early as yesterday morning.

Biden campaign blames Trump for potential abortion medication restrictions

Nnamdi Egwuonwu

Megan Lebowitz

In advance of today's Supreme Court arguments, the Biden campaign pointed the finger at former President Donald Trump for the potential restrictions.

"This case could strip away access to medication abortion everywhere in this country," said Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez during a press call yesterday. "It would be the biggest step towards Donald Trump’s ultimate goal of a nationwide abortion ban since Roe was overturned."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who's also a member of the Biden campaign national advisory board, said the case before the Supreme Court is about Trump and the GOP pushing closer to a national abortion ban, rather than about the safety or efficacy of medication abortion.

"Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are prepared to use every tool in their toolbox to control women’s bodies, banning abortion nationwide, ending access to IVF and even attacking contraception access," Warren, D-Mass., said on the call.

Lawyer for doctors' group played key role in Dobbs decision

Erin Hawley, who is representing the group suing the FDA, is senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that represents petitioners in many case against abortion. Hawley wrote briefs for the state of Mississippi in the Dobbs case, which overturned Roe v. Wade.

Hawley met her husband, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., while they were both clerks for Chief Justice John Roberts, who concurred with the majority opinion of Dobbs but stopped short of also reaching the decision to overturn Roe.

Abortion pill case could spark challenges to IVF, birth control

Vaccines, birth control pills, hormone therapies and fertility drugs would be subject to new litigation if the Supreme Court endorses a challenge to the abortion pill mifepristone, pharmaceutical industry experts warn.

When the court today weighs whether to roll back FDA findings that made mifepristone more readily available, it is not just access to that particular drug, used for the majority of abortions nationwide, that is on the line.

The pharmaceutical industry has raised the alarm, telling both the justices in court filings and anyone else who will listen that giving individual federal judges the power to cast aside the agency’s scientific health and safety findings would cause chaos within the sector. It would likely lead to litigation over other drugs, both current and those yet to be approved, on which people have strong feelings.

Will justices seize on the Comstock Act?

In response to the 2021 decision to allow mifepristone to be sent by mail, anti-abortion advocates have seized on a hitherto obscure 19th-century law called the Comstock Act, which prohibits the mailing of any drug or medicine that can be used for abortion. They argue that the Comstock Act should be taken into account in assessing the FDA’s decision to dispense with in-person visits.

When the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the issue, one of the judges wrote that the FDA decision violated the Comstock Act, but the decision by the three-judge panel did not rely on that finding.

The FDA in court papers described it as a “doubly flawed” argument, arguing that the law was only intended to prohibit drugs that would lead to an “unlawful abortion,” not abortions that are lawful. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion in December 2022 that supports the Biden administration’s position.

Justices could decide the case without addressing FDA authority

The Supreme Court could rule for the government, leaving in place the current approvals for mifepristone, without deciding the knotty legal issues about the FDA approval process.

The government has argued strenuously that the doctors and others who filed the lawsuit do not have legal standing because they cannot show any injury that can be traced to the FDA’s decisions.

If the court were to adopt that argument, it could simply rule that the lawsuit should be dismissed.

The doctors themselves do not prescribe mifepristone, but they argue they are injured because they could be required to treat patients who have taken the pill and have serious side effects. As they oppose abortion, any actions they are forced to take to help a woman complete the process would make them complicit, the plaintiffs argued in court papers .

The FDA’s lawyers wrote in the government’s brief that the plaintiffs can at best point at a “hypothetical scenario,” which is not enough to establish standing.

The challengers, the brief stated, “cannot identify even a single case where any of their members has been forced to provide such care.”

Challengers say FDA decisions were 'arbitrary and capricious'

The challengers — doctors and other medical professionals who oppose abortion — argue that the FDA failed to sufficiently take into account safety concerns when the restrictions on mifepristone, including the requirement that the patient have an in-person visit with a doctor, were lifted.

Among other things, they note that the FDA conceded there would be an increase in emergency room visits by women suffering side effects as a result of the pill being made available by mail. As a result, the government acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner in violation of a law called the Administrative Procedure Act, the plaintiffs argue.

The FDA said in court papers that its actions were “supported by an exhausting review of a record including dozens of scientific studies and decades of safe use of mifepristone by millions of women.”

Doctors and patient advocates fear restricted access to abortion pill

Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

About two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the court today will revisit the issue of reproductive rights, this time contemplating whether to limit access to mifepristone, the first of two pills used in medication abortion.

Ahead of oral arguments and eventual ruling, doctors and patient advocates are expressing alarm about what might happen if the high court decides to tighten access to the drug.

Protests and rallies are being held for and against access to mifepristone

Ahead of the oral arguments, the pro-abortion group Women's March and the Center for Popular Democracy are protesting against the challenge to access with a march to the Supreme Court at 8 a.m.

Students for Life of America, an anti-abortion youth group, will also hold a rally at 8 a.m. in front of the Supreme Court.

At 9 a.m., more than two dozen reproductive and civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, will bus in abortion advocates and providers to hold a protest on the steps of the Supreme Court.

Elsewhere, Students for Life of America will join the Pro-Life Action League in a rally at Walgreens headquarters outside Chicago at 12:30 p.m. to protest against the drugstore chain's decision to sell the pill.

What is at stake in abortion pill case?

The Supreme Court is weighing decisions made by the FDA from 2016 onward that lifted restrictions on mifepristone, including one that made it available by mail.

The court is not reviewing the original 2000 decision to approve the drug, which the plaintiffs had challenged in lower courts. Whatever the justices rule, the drug will remain available in some form.

In addition to the decision to make mifepristone available by mail, the court will also consider decisions in 2016 to extend the window in which mifepristone could be used to terminate pregnancies from seven weeks’ gestation to 10 weeks and reduce the number of in-person visits for patients from three to one. In another 2016 move, the FDA altered the dosing regimen, finding that a lower dose of mifepristone was sufficient.