By GEOFF MULVIHILL (Associated Press)

The Supreme Court ‘s ruling on technical grounds Thursday keeps the abortion pill mifepristone available in the U.S. for now, but it won’t be the last word on the issue, and the unanimous opinion offers some clues for how abortion opponents can keep trying to deny it to women nationwide.

Some state attorneys general have indicated that they’ll press ahead, though they haven’t laid out exactly how.

And while the ruling said the anti-abortion doctors who brought the lawsuit failed to show they’ve been harmed when others use the drug, that might not stop some other plaintiff from a successful challenge.

“The decision is good that the doctors don’t have standing,” said Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, director of Aid Access, an abortion pill supplier working with U.S. providers. “The problem is, the decision should have said that nobody has standing in this case – that only the women have standing.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion even provides a road map for people with “sincere concerns about and objections to others using mifepristone and obtaining abortions.”

“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 on certain activities,” he wrote.

That route would be more likely to work for them if Republican Donald Trump is elected president in November than if Joe Biden remains in office.

The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine sued the Food and Drug Administration in 2022, a few months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the nationwide right to abortion. Most GOP-controlled states had implemented new bans or limits on abortion by then. The anti-abortion doctors sought a ruling that would apply nationwide, asking judges to find that the FDA wrongly approved and eased access to mifepristone.

A federal judge in Texas and the New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals validated many of the group’s arguments, making some Democratic-controlled states nervous enough to stockpile abortion pills.

Most medication abortions use a combination of mifepristone, which is also used in miscarriage care, and another, misoprostol. The latter drug can also be used alone — but women are more likely to experience side effects that way.

About half the abortions across the nation involved such pills before Roe was overturned. By last year, the medication was used in nearly two-thirds, one survey found. Providers in some states are using telehealth appointments to prescribe and mail them to women in states with bans or restrictions. Underground networks distribute them, too.

After the doctors group filed suit, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm, Republican attorneys general for Idaho, Kansas and Missouri tried to get involved. They were allowed into the case by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, then denied an intervening role by the Supreme Court.

David S. Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University who studies abortion-related law, said that normally, intervenors like the states would not be allowed to continue if the main parties have their claims dismissed because they lack standing, but that’s not yet clear in this case, and the attorneys general aren’t giving up.

“We are moving forward undeterred with our litigation to protect both women and their unborn children,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said on X.

When they were trying to intervene, the attorneys general contended that allowing mifepristone interferes with their ability to enforce their states’ abortion bans, and that state taxpayers could have to pay emergency room bills when women who use it have complications.

It’s no sure thing that the Supreme Court would accept such arguments as a reason to give the states standing, said Mary Ziegler, a historian at the University of California, Davis School of Law who studies abortion. “The court is leery of things that are speculative,” she said.

However, Ziegler said in a post on X Thursday that “One could read parts of this opinion as creating a roadmap to future plaintiffs.”

And she noted that the ruling made no mention of the Comstock Act, a 19th-century federal vice law that conservatives have argued can be invoked to prevent abortion pills from being shipped across state lines. The Biden administration does not interpret it that way — but another might. And if an abortion opponent takes charge as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, they could revoke or alter the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone.

Still another approach could be for Republican states to challenge the shield laws that seek to protect healthcare providers in some Democratic-controlled states when they prescribe pills to patients in states with abortion bans.

Jillian Phillips, a mother in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, who took mifepristone to help pass the remains of a pregnancy when she miscarried eight years ago, said it’s hard for her to think of Thursday’s ruling as a win for abortion rights, because of all it could lead to.

“My fear is always that when we make a step forward,” she said, abortion opponents “get even more desperate to put even more barriers in place and restrict things even further.”

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Associated Press reporters Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville, Tennessee, and Laura Ungar in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this article.

Luke Skinner went 2 for 3 with an RBI and two runs scored, and Alex Mazzetti added a two-run triple as third seed East Ridge beat Forest Lake, 10-1, in a Class 4A baseball state tournament semifinal at CHS Field.

Will Preimsberger pitched three scoreless innings for the Raptors (20-6), who advanced to defend their 2023 state title Monday at Target Field against the winner of the late afternoon game between Mounds View and top-seeded Wayzata.

Forest Lake bows out with a 14-12 record. The Rangers upset No. 2 seed Farmington, 1-0, in Thursday’s quarterfinals.

Jacob Reigert was 2 for 2 with two runs scored and a sacrifice fly and pitched two scoreless innings of relief for the Raptors. Jack Blink, Luke Ryerse, Bennett Skinner and Colton Widen also drove in runs for East Ridge, which finished the season 3-0 against its Suburban East Conference rival.

Trailing 10-0 in the fourth, the Rangers finally scored when TJ Heikkla opened the inning with an infield single, moved to second on a walk by Zach Schnabel and scored when the relay on a potential double play grounder went astray.

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By JOEY CAPPELLETTI and ALI SWENSON (Associated Press)

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. (AP) — The Republican National Committee on Friday launched a swing state initiative to mobilize some 100,000 polling place monitors, poll workers and attorneys to serve as “election integrity” watchdogs in November — an effort that immediately drew concerns that it could lead to harassment of election workers and undermine trust in the vote.

The RNC says its plan will help voters have faith in the electoral process and ensure their votes matter. Yet, as former President Donald Trump and his allies continue to spread false claims that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud, the effort also sets the stage for a repeat of Trump’s efforts to undermine the results — a gambit that ultimately led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump allies already have signaled that they might not accept the results if he loses to President Joe Biden.

The RNC has said its new effort will focus on stopping “Democrat attempts to circumvent the rules.” The party will deploy monitors to observe every step of the election process, create hotlines for poll watchers to report perceived problems and escalate those issues by taking legal action.

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said Friday that the committee will place election integrity directors and counsels in 15 states, including the most hotly contest battlegrounds, and work with state parties to set up similar programs in the other states.

“What we need to ensure is integrity in our electoral process,” RNC Co-chair Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, said during the kickoff event in Bloomfield Hills, in a suburban county that is crucial for winning Michigan. “We can never go back and repeat 2020, but we can learn the lessons from 2020.”

She said most of the RNC is currently focused on the committee’s election integrity program, which she called “one of its kind.”

Both parties have a long history of organizing supporters to serve as poll monitors, and the Democratic National Committee said it plans its own volunteer recruitment effort. Several election officials in presidential swing states said they feel this kind of transparency and engagement is one of the best ways to help skeptics feel confident in the many safeguards baked into the electoral process.

Yet the language surrounding the RNC’s effort and how it’s being implemented could present broader concerns should it evolve beyond normal political party organizing, said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who serves as executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

“To do it in a way that feeds your voters with the idea that the election is going to be stolen, that prepares them to be angry if their candidate loses — that can be very dangerous,” Becker said.

Trump pushed false claims of election fraud in 2016 and 2020 and has continued to predict a rigged election if he loses this year. During a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, he said of Democrats, “the only way they can beat us is to cheat.”

“Don’t let them cheat,” he said. “Don’t let them do anything.”

RNC leadership — which Trump handpicked in a major overhaul of the committee earlier this year — has followed his lead in forecasting the potential for foul play in this year’s election. Lara Trump qualified her answer on CNN earlier this month when asked if she’d accept the results.

“I can tell you, yes, we will accept the results of this election if we feel that it is free, fair and transparent,” she said. “And we are working overtime to ensure that indeed that happens.”

Whatley said Friday that the RNC is focused on three priorities this cycle: pushing for election security laws such as voter ID requirements, ensuring there are observers monitoring the voting process and speaking up about what it calls “election integrity” issues.

Democratic National Committee spokesperson Alex Floyd said the DNC, “alongside our partners at the state and local level, won’t let MAGA Republicans get away with these baseless attacks on our democracy, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that all Americans can make their voice heard at the ballot box.”

The DNC said it has invested tens of millions of dollars into expanding its “I Will Vote” initiative, which includes funding efforts to support mail voting and other voting access issues in swing states.

The RNC’s kickoff event took place at the headquarters of the Oakland County GOP, one of Michigan’s most influential local parties. Oakland County is an affluent Detroit suburb that for decades was one of Michigan’s premier bellwether counties.

While the county holds the largest number of Republican voters in the state, it has shifted increasingly Democratic in recent years, and Donald Trump has lost the county in both of his previous campaigns.

The RNC has focused many of its challenges ahead of the election in Michigan, a state Trump narrowly won in 2016 but lost to Biden in 2020. A review by Republican lawmakers found there was no widespread fraud in that year’s election and that Biden legitimately won the state. That aligns with reviews, recounts and audits in the other battleground states where Trump disputed his loss, all of which affirmed Biden’s victory.

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Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report. Swenson reported from New York.

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