mifepristone access – The Supreme Court kept mifepristone available without in-person visits, rejecting lower-court limits as a Louisiana lawsuit and appeals continue.
The Supreme Court kept access intact to mifepristone, the drug used in the most common method of abortion, rejecting restrictions imposed by lower courts while litigation continues.
In an order issued Thursday. the justices allowed women seeking abortions to continue obtaining mifepristone at pharmacies or through the mail without an in-person visit to a doctor.. The court’s action means access is likely to remain uninterrupted at least into next year as the case proceeds. including a potential appeal to the Supreme Court.
The justices granted emergency requests from Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro. the companies that make mifepristone and are appealing a federal appeals court decision that would have required in-person doctor visits and halted delivery through the mail.. The FDA, which first approved mifepristone for abortion use in 2000, stopped requiring in-person visits five years ago.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Thomas wrote that the companies are not entitled to the court’s intervention to protect them from “lost profits” from what he called a “criminal enterprise.”
Anti-abortion groups. frustrated with President Donald Trump’s administration. are pressing the FDA to accelerate a review that they hope will bring new limits on mifepristone.. Among their targets are efforts they want to see that would restrict prescribing via telehealth platforms.. Trump’s administration has said the process takes time.
Earlier this week, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned after months of criticism from Trump’s political allies, including abortion opponents.. Susan B.. Anthony Pro-Life America and similarly aligned groups had urged Trump to fire Makary over what they described as slow progress on the mifepristone review.
The court is addressing the latest abortion dispute roughly four years after its conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade, paving the way for more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright.
This case began with a lawsuit Louisiana filed to roll back the FDA’s rules governing how mifepristone can be prescribed. The state argues the policy undermines Louisiana’s abortion ban and challenges the drug’s safety, even though FDA scientists have repeatedly found it safe and effective.
Alito. who wrote the opinion overturning Roe. said in his dissent that Louisiana’s efforts were being thwarted by medical providers and private organizations that mail the pills to patients in the state.. He wrote that Danco and GenBioPro were “obviously aware of what is going on yet nevertheless supply the drug and reap profits from its felonious use in Louisiana.”
Thomas tied the dispute to the Comstock Act, a 19th-century law that has long gone unenforced. He said it bans mailing any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion.”
Lower courts, including a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, concluded Louisiana was likely to prevail. That panel ordered that mail access and telehealth visits be suspended while the dispute plays out.
Mifepristone is most often used in combination with another drug, misoprostol. Medication abortions accounted for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States in 2023, the last year for which statistics are available.
The current fight echoes a similar controversy that reached the Supreme Court three years ago. At that time, lower courts also sought to restrict access to mifepristone, in a case brought by physicians who oppose abortion. They filed suit after the court overturned Roe.
The Supreme Court blocked the 5th Circuit’s ruling from taking effect, with Alito and Thomas dissenting. In 2024, the justices unanimously dismissed the doctors’ suit, finding they lacked legal right, or standing, to sue.
In the current dispute, mainstream medical groups, the pharmaceutical industry and Democratic members of Congress have urged the court not to limit access to the drug. Pharmaceutical companies warned that a ruling for abortion opponents would disrupt the mifepristone approval process.
Debate over mifepristone’s safety has persisted for more than 25 years.. The FDA has eased multiple restrictions imposed when the drug was first approved. including who can prescribe it. how it is dispensed. and what safety complications must be reported.. Anti-abortion groups have nevertheless filed repeated petitions and lawsuits against the agency. alleging that it violated federal law by overlooking safety concerns.
At the Supreme Court, Trump’s administration has taken an unusually quiet stance.. It declined to file a written brief recommending how the court should rule. despite federal regulations being at the heart of the dispute.. Both sides interpreted that silence as an implicit endorsement of the appeals court’s decision.
The case adds another chapter to the court’s expanding abortion docket since Roe was reversed, with the practical effect of Thursday’s order likely to be felt by patients and providers in the months ahead.
mifepristone Supreme Court abortion access FDA rules Louisiana lawsuit telehealth abortion Comstock Act
so they just gonna keep letting people mail order this stuff forever huh
So they kept the pills available without doctors seeing you in person… how is that even allowed?
Wait I thought Trump already banned all abortions when he got back in office?? My cousin said he signed something in January so why is this still even a debate, this makes no sense to me at all.
Clarence Thomas calling it a criminal enterprise is honestly wild to me, like this drug has been fda approved since 2000 that is literally over 20 years and now suddenly its criminal. I dont even fully understand what the louisiana lawsuit is actually about but it sounds like they just keep trying different courts until they get what they want. my sister used this medication and she had to jump through so many hoops already. feels like it never ends with this stuff and regular people just get caught in the middle of all the legal back and forth.
This is just the Supreme Court doing whatever and “emergency requests” from the companies like that matters more than actual healthcare. I read somewhere they get lost profits… not sure why the article keeps saying that like it’s normal.
so the fda guy quit AND they still kept the drug available, I feel like the article is leaving out a lot here. these companies are just protecting their profits thats all this is, Thomas was right about that part at least. people act like the supreme court is some neutral thing but they literally just pick winners and losers every time. also didnt they already rule on abortion like last year or the year before, why is this back again already. I swear every few months its the same story just different names.
Wait, I thought the FDA already stopped the in-person visits thing like 5 years ago? So why are we acting like it’s some sudden rollback? This is confusing as heck. Also the guy resigned (Makary) and now everyone’s blaming Trump allies like it’s all coordinated.
Clarence Thomas calling it a “criminal enterprise” is wild. But I also don’t get how a Louisiana lawsuit is still a thing if the Supreme Court just decides it stays open. Meanwhile anti-abortion groups want the telehealth prescribing restricted… so does that mean you gotta drive somewhere just to get a prescription now? Seems like politics, not medicine.