The Supreme Court on Thursday preserved broad mail access to mifepristone for now, rejecting a lower court order that would have required in-person dispensing.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday preserved broad access to the abortion pill mifepristone through the mail, keeping in place a policy that allows patients nationwide to obtain the drug without an in-person clinic visit while litigation continues.
In an unsigned decision. the justices set aside for now a lower court order that would have blocked abortion providers from prescribing mifepristone via telehealth and shipping it to patients.. The case turns on a central question in the post-Roe era: how far the federal government may go in permitting remote prescribing and mail delivery of a medication used in early abortions.
Conservative justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The Supreme Court’s intervention followed a ruling earlier this month by a federal appeals court.. That decision reinstated an FDA rule requiring mifepristone to be dispensed in person.. Two manufacturers of the drug. Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro. warned that the appeals court action would create confusion and “chaos” for patients. abortion providers. and pharmacies. and they asked the Supreme Court to halt it.. They urged the high court to keep allowing access through the mail.
Louisiana officials asked the opposite.. They urged the justices to maintain the more stringent requirement. arguing that the FDA had lifted the in-person dispensing rule in 2021 and that providers outside the state could use that change to evade Louisiana’s abortion ban.. Louisiana said it has seen more than 1,000 medication abortions in the state as a result.
The Biden administration did not take a position before the Supreme Court on whether mail access should be preserved.
Alito had issued a temporary order last week that paused the appellate court’s decision while the Supreme Court considered the matter, a pause that was due to expire Thursday. With the full court stepping in, broad mail access will remain in effect for now.
The dispute traces back to a lawsuit Louisiana filed against the FDA last year.. Louisiana’s complaint threatened to cut off mail access to mifepristone for women nationwide. not just in states where abortion access is restricted.. Mifepristone is used with a second drug, misoprostol, to terminate an early pregnancy.
Medication abortions are widely used.. The Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, reported that medication accounted for 65% of all clinician-provided abortions in 2023.. Guttmacher also found that more than 1.1 million abortions were provided by health care workers last year. including medication abortions delivered through telehealth in states where abortion is restricted.
The stakes have intensified since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v.. Wade in 2022, after which more than half of the states imposed limits on abortion.. In Louisiana, abortion is banned with narrow exceptions.. The state also enacted a 2024 law designating mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances and criminalizing possession without a prescription.
Federal policy has evolved during the same period.. The Biden administration made it easier to obtain mifepristone during the COVID-19 pandemic by suspending enforcement of the in-person dispensing requirement. concluding that the drug “may be safely used without in-person dispensing.” The FDA later formally allowed mifepristone to be prescribed through telehealth and dispensed through the mail in 2023.
Louisiana officials argued that those changes caused mifepristone to flood into the state, contributing to what they described as “thousands” of unlawful abortions each year. They also said the changes cost the state tens of thousands of dollars through its Medicaid program.
A federal district court paused Louisiana’s case against the FDA in April while the agency reviewed mifepristone’s safety.. The Trump administration. when it was in office. argued that although studies typically take at least a year. the FDA’s plan was to complete the review “sooner than that timeframe.” Louisiana appealed. and the U.S.. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit temporarily blocked the 2023 policy that allowed remote prescribing and mail delivery.
In emergency requests to the Supreme Court. Danco and GenBioPro warned that the 5th Circuit’s order would cause disruptions and could abruptly eliminate nationwide access to mifepristone by mail.. GenBioPro said patients and clinicians had come to rely on dispensing without an in-clinic visit. citing obstacles such as distance for rural patients and difficulties related to transportation. childcare. or work schedules.. The company warned that the order could lead to delays or denials of time-sensitive care, supply-chain disruptions, and health risks.
Louisiana officials countered that medication abortions have surged since Roe was overturned.. They said in-person abortions in the state “virtually vanished. ” while medication abortions “skyrocketed.” Louisiana also said it has spent more than $17. 000 investigating out-of-state providers who shipped mifepristone into Louisiana.
The dispute has reached the Supreme Court more than once.. Months after the court rolled back the constitutional right to abortion. anti-abortion rights groups filed a separate lawsuit challenging the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone and several agency steps that eased conditions for its use.. Those groups argued the FDA failed to adequately consider the drug’s safety and effectiveness.
Major medical associations have said serious adverse events are rare when mifepristone is used as part of medication abortions.. The American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. among others. have said major adverse events occur in less than 0.32% of patients.
In 2024, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected that earlier challenge, ruling that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to sue the FDA.
With Thursday’s decision, the justices are keeping the status quo for now, allowing mail access to continue as the broader legal battle over the FDA’s policy proceeds.
Supreme Court mifepristone abortion pill telehealth access Louisiana lawsuit FDA policy reproductive rights
so they basically just made it legal to mail drugs to people now?? what
I thought Roe v Wade already got overturned so how is this even happening, like didnt they already decide all this stuff last year or whenever it was. This feels like the same thing they keep going back and forth on and nothing ever actually gets settled.
Alito and Thomas dissented which honestly tells you everything you need to know, those two vote against anything that helps regular people and nobody ever talks about it. I remember when this whole mifepristone thing started and they were saying the FDA never even approved it properly in the first place, not sure if thats true but I heard it somewhere and it made sense to me. Either way mailing pills to people without a doctor actually seeing them in person just seems like something that could go real wrong real fast, like what if someone has a condition they dont know about. I dont know I just feel like this is being rushed.
Danco Laboratories is literally a abortion pill company so of course they want this, they make money every time one gets mailed out. The Supreme Court is just protecting big pharma again same as always, nobody in washington actually cares about women they just care about who is funding their campaigns and thats just the truth whether people want to hear it or not. And before anyone says im against women no im not I just think there should be a real doctor involved not some telehealth app on your phone that takes five minutes. My cousin used one of those telehealth things for something completely different and they just gave her whatever she asked for without even really checking anything so yeah I dont trust this whole system at all.