Supreme Court Temporarily Preserves Telehealth Access to Abortion Pill Mifepristone

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily restored telehealth and mail access to the abortion pill mifepristone, pausing a lower court ruling that would have required patients nationwide to obtain the drug in person.The court’s brief order is an “administrative stay,” meaning it is not a final ruling on the case. Instead, it keeps current access rules in place for several days while the justices review emergency appeals from Danco Laboratories, which makes mifepristone, and GenBioPro, which makes a generic version. The drug is used to end an existing pregnancy, typically within the first 11 weeks Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency appeals from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said the stay will remain in place through May 11. He also asked for responses in the case by Thursday.The appeal came after a unanimous ruling Friday from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. That court temporarily reinstated a nationwide requirement that patients get mifepristone in person, ending access to the medication by mail after a telehealth appointment.The 5th Circuit’s decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Louisiana against the Food and Drug Administration. The state argued that federal rules allowing abortion pills to be mailed undermined its abortion ban.Writing for the appeals court in the Friday ruling, Judge Kyle Duncan said the current FDA rules create “an effective way for an out-of-state prescriber to place the drug in the hands of Louisianans in defiance of Louisiana law.”The panel also wrote: “Every abortion facilitated by FDA’s action cancels Louisiana’s ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that ‘every unborn child is a human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person.’”Danco told the Supreme Court that the 5th Circuit’s order “injects immediate confusion and upheaval into highly time-sensitive medical decisions.” GenBioPro said the lower court’s ruling risked “abruptly cutting off access for patients nationwide.”GenBioPro is “alarmed by this court’s decision to ignore the FDA’s rigorous science and decades of safe use of mifepristone in a case pursued by extremist abortion opponents,” said the company’s CEO Evan Masingill.” He added: “We remain committed to taking any actions necessary to make mifepristone available and accessible to as many people as possible in the country, regardless of anti-abortion special interests trying to undermine patients’ access.”The case returned the issue of abortion to the Supreme Court less than two years after the justices overturned Roe v. Wade. It also brings mifepristone back before the court after an earlier dispute in which the justices unanimously rejected a challenge to FDA rules on procedural grounds. In that 2024 case, the court ruled that the doctors and anti-abortion groups who sued did not have legal standing, leaving the underlying access rules in place.Mifepristone is one of two drugs commonly used in medication abortions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA dropped the requirement that it be dispensed during an in-person medical visit, allowing telehealth prescriptions. The Biden administration later finalized rules in 2023 ending the in-person requirement.

Supreme Court Temporarily Preserves Telehealth Access to Abortion Pill Mifepristone

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