WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday restored widespread access to the abortion drug mifepristone, blocking a ruling that threatened to upend one of the primary ways abortions are provided across the country.
The order signed by Justice Samuel Alito temporarily allows women seeking abortions to obtain the pills at pharmacies or by mail without visiting a doctor in person.
Those rules had been in effect for several years until a federal appeals court imposed new restrictions last week.
The majority of abortions in the United States are performed with medication, usually a combination of mifepristone and a second drug, misoprostol. The availability of these programs has blunted the impact of abortion bans that most Republican-led states have begun enacting since the 2022 Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade and allowed states to ban.
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Louisiana filed a lawsuit seeking to restrict access to mifepristone, arguing that the availability of mifepristone undermines the prohibition there.
Some Democratic-led states have enacted laws that give legal protections to people who prescribe drugs via telemedicine to patients in states where it is prohibited.
Alito’s order will remain in effect for another week, until both sides respond and the court considers the issue more fully.
The manufacturer of mifepristone has filed an emergency appeal seeking intervention from the Supreme Court.
— Mark Sherman and Jeff Mulvihill
