Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday maintained mail access to the abortion pill mifepristone, setting aside for now a lower court order that blocked abortion providers from prescribing the widely used drug through telehealth and shipping it to patients.
The high court’s decision ensures that patients nationwide will continue to have broad access to mifepristone while litigation in a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s relaxed policy for obtaining the drug brought by the state of Louisiana moves forward.
Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The order came after a federal appellate court earlier this month reinstated a FDA rule requiring mifepristone be dispensed in-person. Two pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the drug, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, had warned that the ruling caused confusion and chaos for patients, abortion providers and pharmacies, and they asked the Supreme Court to block the lower court’s decision and continue allowing patients to obtain the pills through the mail.
But Louisiana officials urged the high court to maintain the more stringent rule for obtaining mifepristone, which the FDA lifted in 2021. They warned that the end of the in-person dispensing requirement allowed out-of-state providers to evade its abortion ban, leading to more than 1,000 medication abortions in the state. The FDA did not take a position before the Supreme Court as to whether it should preserve mail access to mifepristone.
Alito had issued a temporary order last week that halted the appellate court’s decision while the court considered the matter, though his pause was set to expire Thursday. The full Supreme Court has now agreed to maintain broad access to the abortion drug through the mail.
This is a breaking story; it will be updated.