The US Supreme Court has ruled that mifepristone, the most common abortion pill, can continue to be accessed by mail. The order blocks a lower court's restrictions on the drug while litigation plays out, likely preserving access until a final decision next year.
Abortion pills are now the most common method of terminating pregnancies in the US, especially in states where abortion is banned. Thursday's unsigned emergency stay from the high court temporarily reinstates the FDA's 2023 policy allowing doctors to prescribe mifepristone via telemedicine, enabling women to receive the pills by mail or at a pharmacy.
Louisiana had sued the FDA last October, arguing nationwide mail delivery of the drug interfered with the state's own abortion ban. An appeals court earlier this month reinstated an in-person requirement, prompting two mifepristone manufacturers to seek Supreme Court intervention.
The court's most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented. Thomas wrote that since sending mifepristone by mail is illegal in Louisiana, the manufacturers are not entitled to block a court order based on lost profits from their "criminal enterprise."
More than 20 US states have banned or restricted abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.