A federal appeals court ruled May 1 to strike down an FDA decision that allowed mail-order pharmacies to ship the abortion pill mifepristone. Two pharmaceutical companies have since appealed to the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit focuses on a 2021 FDA decision to allow clinicians to prescribe the abortion pills without an initial in-person visit; the change was formalized in 2023. (Some states ban the drugs, and others require an in-person physician visit.)
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, anti-abortion advocates have sought restrictions to mifepristone — most of these efforts have failed. Approved in 2000, mifepristone is indicated to end a pregnancy within 10 weeks of gestation. It is used in a majority of abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute.
On May 1, a three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the FDA’s removal of the in-person dispensing requirement “were likely unlawful,” claiming it was based on inadequate data, has injured women and fetuses, and has obstructed Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban.
The court ordered a nationwide reinstatement of the in-person dispensing of mifepristone. The ruling also blocks telemedicine prescription of mifepristone for non-abortion uses, such as easing miscarriages.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and a woman who said her boyfriend coerced her into taking mail-ordered mifepristone for an abortion, Rosalie Markezich, filed the lawsuit in October. The named defendants are Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, two mifepristone distributors that filed their appeal to the Supreme Court on May 1. They also sought a one-week administrative stay.
The Supreme Court has not indicated whether it will take the case.
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