Democrats wanted to make abortion rights a focal point in 2024. The Supreme Court just guaranteed it.

• The Supreme Court said it would hear a case about limiting access to a common abortion pill.
• The court's expected ruling next summer could upend the 2024 presidential campaign.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear its most consequential abortion rights case since it overturned Roe v. Wade, adding the possibility that a high court opinion could rock the nation months before voters head to the polls, and all but guaranteeing the issue remains top of mind going into the summer.

Justices will now hear a case on potential limits to access to mifepristone, a widely-used pill that is part of a two-course regimen can induce an abortion. They will hear the case next spring, setting up a potential ruling in June 2024, just as the presidential campaign is expected to heat up.

The case could have major implications. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for abortion rights, medicated abortions account for 54% of all abortions. If mifepristone cannot be used, research shows that using only misoprostol, the other drug that is often administered, can cause more side effects, NPR previously reported. Doctors say that even using misoprostol alone is still safe.

Court watchers pointed out that the Supreme Court rejected an effort to also hear a direct challenge to the FDA's approval of mifepristone. Instead, they will focus on limiting access to the drug.

"This is a very good sign for access to mifepristone," Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, of the justice's refusal to hear the broader challenge.

Democrats nationwide have already been trying to put abortion on the ballot in states like Arizona and Florida. Polling shows that abortion rights are one of the few areas where voters trust President Joe Biden and Democrats far more than Republicans. The Supreme Court's decision to hear the mifepristone case now virtually guarantees that the topic will be front and center in the 2024 debate.

The Biden administration asked the high court to hear the case after a lower federal court ruled that the commonly used drug could not be made available through the mail, even in states that have guaranteed broader abortion rights.

The Supreme Court previously decided that access to mifepristone would not change while the drug's future was being contested.

Justices unleashed a political firestorm after it gutted nationwide abortion rights in June 2022. Republicans vastly underperformed in the midterm elections that November. Anger has not subsided as the debate returns to the state level. Abortion rights advocates are undefeated in major contests since Roe's reversal having successfully blocked further restrictions in states like Kansas and Kentucky and enshrined state constitutional protections in states like Michigan and Ohio.

Many Democrats were once reticent to raise abortion on the campaign trail. Now, candidates are making explicit appeals about the subject. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear's campaign made headlines after it released an ad based on his Republican opponent's position on exceptions to abortion bans. Beshear, who went on to win his closely-watched reelection fight, thanked the woman who starred in the ad. Virginia Democrats also made abortion rights central to their fight to hold the state Senate. Voters later handed the party both chambers in the statehouse.