Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito temporarily blocked on Monday an appeals court’s ruling that barred abortion pills from being sold online and transported to patients via mail.
A pair of drugmakers that offer mifepristone, the abortion pill at the center of the litigation, had urged the Supreme Court to halt the Friday ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which had restored an in-person screening requirement for access to the abortion pill, by claiming the ruling had created “nationwide chaos.” Alito, the justice who handles emergency appeals from the 5th Circuit, granted an administrative stay, halting the lower court ruling through 5 p.m. on May 11 while the full Supreme Court considers the emergency petitions.
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Alito gave Louisiana officials until 5 p.m. on Thursday to respond to the emergency requests from the drugmakers.
The lawsuit, brought by Louisiana officials against the Food and Drug Administration and the mifepristone drugmakers, challenges the FDA’s decision, under the Biden administration, to remove the in-person screening requirements before giving women access to the drug.
The FDA’s rule change came in 2023, in the aftermath of the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which returned abortion lawmaking to states.
The 5th Circuit’s ruling was written by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, an appointee of President Donald Trump, and it found the state had shown irreparable harm that required the appeals court to block the FDA’s rule, because it effectively overrode Louisiana’s law barring elective abortion.
“The regulation creates an effective way for an out-of-state prescriber to place the drug in the hands of Louisianans in defiance of Louisiana law,” the appeals court opinion said.
“Every abortion facilitated by FDA’s action cancels Louisiana’s ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that ‘every unborn child is human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person,'” the 5th Circuit’s ruling said.
After the ruling late Friday, the two pharmaceutical companies, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, filed emergency petitions to the Supreme Court on Saturday, asking the justices to pause the 5th Circuit’s ruling, both arguing that it creates confusion.
APPEALS COURT TEMPORARILY BLOCKS MAIL-ORDER ABORTION NATIONWIDE
“The panel’s ruling injects immediate confusion and upheaval into highly time-sensitive medical decisions—and it forces Danco, FDA, certified Mifeprex providers, patients, and pharmacies all to guess at what is allowed and what is not,” Danco Laboratories’s emergency petition said.
In a 2024 case, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the FDA’s rule allowing mifepristone to be prescribed online and shipped nationwide, ruling that the group that sued over the rule, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, did not have proper standing to file the legal challenge.
