Key Takeaways
- The Supreme Court issued an administrative stay that restores broader access to mifepristone while it reviews a lower court ruling.
- Louisiana’s lawsuit against the FDA argues that mailing the abortion pill conflicts with the state’s near-total abortion ban.
- Advocates and state officials offered sharply different reactions, highlighting the ongoing legal and political fight over abortion medication.
The war on women’s abortion rights seemingly has no end, but on Monday (May 4), patients and providers got a sigh of temporary relief as the Supreme Court restored wider access to mifepristone.
In a brief order, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. paused Friday’s (May 1) lower-court ruling, blocking restrictions that would have stopped abortion providers from prescribing and shipping the medication to patients via telemedicine. As a result, access will remain in place until at least May 11, with Louisiana given until Thursday (May 7) to file a response. After that, the court will determine what comes next.
Why Louisiana sued the FDA over mifepristone access
For anyone curious why mifepristone’s availability became so limited nationwide in the first place, it largely comes down to Louisiana’s lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In its legal filing, the state argued that allowing the drug to be mailed within its borders undermined its near-total abortion ban at all stages of pregnancy.
“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,’” Donald Trump-appointed U.S. Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan wrote in an 18-page ruling last week, per Courthouse News.
As for why mifepristone specifically — especially given that many women use its companion drug, misoprostol, alone — CNN-cited studies note that the drug has surged in popularity over the past two decades. It functions by blocking “progesterone, which helps the body maintain the [lining] of the uterus so a pregnancy can continue.” Taking both pills 24 to 48 hours apart is said to be 99.6 percent effective.
How are abortion rights advocates and opponents reacting to the Supreme Court’s order?
Although access to mifepristone by mail without medical oversight has temporarily returned, Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Alexis McGill Johnson stressed that many people have already been affected by the short-term ban.
"While mifepristone access returns to where it was on Friday morning, the whiplash and chaos that patients and providers are navigating have already had real consequences for real people’s lives and futures," she said, according to NBC News.
In response to drugmakers like Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro asserting that Louisiana doesn’t have legal standing to challenge mifepristone access, Attorney General Liz Murrill also issued a statement following the Supreme Court’s decision.
"Big abortion pharma claims they need an emergency stay because they will lose massive amounts of money if they can’t kill more babies quickly and efficiently by mail without medical oversight," she argued. "The administrative stay is temporary, and I am confident life and the law will win in the end.”