The U.S. Supreme Court on May 11 extended its order allowing a popular abortion pill to continue to be sent in the mail, after a federal appeals court ruling blocked the practice days before.
On May 4, Alito temporarily restored access to the drug mifepristone after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit halted its mailing. Alito's stay was set to expire at 5 p.m. on May 11.
The new ruling came after the maker of the brand-name version of the drug, Danco Laboratories, and the maker of the generic version, GenBioPro, asked the Supreme Court to block the Fifth Circuit ruling.
Whether mifepristone remains widely available depends on the ongoing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review of the Biden administration’s 2023 decision to drop the requirement of an in-person doctor visit before the pill is dispensed, as well as Louisiana’s lawsuit and legislation pending in Congress. The second Trump administration has not changed the no-doctor policy.
Trump administration officials have said that abortion issues should be decided by the states.
The FDA under President Donald Trump approved generic versions of the drug in 2019 and 2025.
A medication abortion generally involves mifepristone, which blocks the hormone progesterone, and misoprostol, which induces contractions.
If the state wins its lawsuit to reinstate the now-repealed requirement for an in-person doctor visit, demand for medication abortions, which now account for most abortions in the United States, could drop.
On April 7, Judge David Joseph of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana put a hold on the litigation until further notice to give the FDA an opportunity to review safety claims about the drug.
Federal lawyers asked the court to stay the case to allow the FDA review to take its course.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said of the Supreme Court’s latest ruling in the case, “Big abortion drug dealers want an emergency stay so they can continue to profit from killing more babies by mail without any sort of medical oversight or concern for the health of women taking these pills."
“The administrative stay is temporary," she told The Epoch Times. "I am confident that life and the law will prevail in the end.”