Buckle up “You could see this one coming a mile off,” snarked Charlie Pierce (Washington Post): A federal appeals court said Wednesday that it would restrict access to a widely used abortion medication after finding that the federal government did not follow the proper process when it loosened regulations in 2016 to make the pill more easily available. Food and Drug Administration decisions to allow the drug mifepristone to be taken later in pregnancy, be mailed directly to patients and be prescribed by a medical professional other than a doctor were not lawful, a three-judge panel of the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled. Mifepristone will remain available while the Department of Justice appeals the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. “You damn bet it will,” Pierce continued. “Right into the lap of Justice Sam Alito, who will undoubtedly find some obscure codicil in the Code of Hammurabi to justify upholding the ruling of the 5th Circuit, which is the Uruk-Hai to Alito’s Saruman anyway. All the lawyers seeking to ban the drug will need to do is talk very fast and use the word ‘abortifacient’ a lot. And the ducks will all be marching in formation.” “Sooner or later, some loaded court will declare all contraceptives to be ‘abortifacients,'” Pierce adds, “and that will be the final end for a protected right of privacy.” The three judges on the 5th Circuit “were appointed by Republican presidents. During oral arguments in May, the trio indicated a willingness to…