The Supreme Court on Monday temporarily paused a lower court order requiring in-person dispensation of the chemical abortion drug mifepristone.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, ruled on Friday that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) current policy undermined Louisiana state law. The court reinstated in-person dispensation for abortion pills, a restoration of FDA requirements revoked during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two mifepristone manufacturers, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, asked the Supreme Court to pause the lower court ruling, calling it “unprecedented” in their emergency request over the weekend.
In response, Justice Samuel Alito issued an administrative stay, putting the lower court order on hold, and temporarily restoring mail-order abortion drugs while the justices consider the companies’ request. The temporary stay will expire May 11 at 5 p.m. ET.
Alito instructed the FDA and Louisiana to respond by 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 7.
Chemical abortions, which rely on mifepristone and misoprostol, accounted for 63% of U.S. abortions in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The number of actual abortions might be higher due to underreporting, according to the organization, which was affiliated with Planned Parenthood until 2007.
In 2024, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to mifepristone’s availability, declining to rule on the legality of relaxed regulations under the Obama and Biden administrations.
Activists, lawmakers, and state attorneys general have been calling on the FDA to do a safety review of the drug, citing severe risks to women’s health.
A recent study by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) found that the removal of in-person visit requirements led to an increase in adverse effects for women having chemical abortions. This study is one among several pointing to a higher rate of serious problems.
Multiple other studies have shown high rates of hospitalizations for women taking the abortion pill. Chemical abortion has a complication rate four times that of surgical abortion, according to one study. Another report found that abortion pill complications are often underreported or misclassified.
SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser, who celebrated the initial ruling pausing abortion drug shipments, called the current situation a “five-alarm crisis for the pro-life movement and for the GOP.”
“The ‘states-only’ strategy, promoted out of fear after Dobbs, is an abject failure in the face of blue states brazenly violating state sovereignty and nullifying hard-won pro-life gains,” Dannenfelser said in a statement shared with EWTN News.
“The GOP cannot win without its base and simply will not get the enthusiasm that drives turnout without leadership from the top,” Dannenfelser said. “With one-third of the most engaged primary voters sidelined and unheard, the Trump administration’s inaction puts lives and voter morale at risk every day it goes on.”
Dannenfelser also called for FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to be “fired immediately,” citing recent comments he made about mifepristone.
“Abortions are up, not down after Dobbs, with at least 1.1 million deaths a year,” Dannenfelser said. “More than 90,000 abortions occur each year just in states that protect babies in the law throughout all nine months of pregnancy — a direct result of Biden’s COVID-era mail-order abortion drug rule, which the Trump administration inexplicably allows to continue.”
“Without basic in-person medical supervision, male buyers have a frighteningly easy tool to abuse women, like abortion drug coercion survivor Rosalie Markezich, and their children,” Dannenfelser continued. “The Supreme Court will now decide whether this injustice ends here or whether it raises its ugly head over and over again.”
Students for Life Action President Kristan Hawkins called the situation “moral insanity.”
“The tragedy of chemical abortion pill distribution is that preborn babies die while we argue about how the abortion lobby and Big Pharma might be hurt,” she said in a statement shared with EWTN News.
“Enforcement of the Comstock Act is Step 1 for Trump administration’s Department of Justice, but we certainly hope they will fight more fiercely as Trump’s Food and Drug Administration has slow-walked a real review of deadly chemical abortion pills,” Hawkins said.
The American Association of Pro Life OB-GYNs (AAPLOG) expressed concerns for the safety of women and unborn children.
“Just when women and preborn children were about to receive bare minimum safety regulations, abortion manufacturers jumped in to save their bottom line,” the organization said in a statement shared with EWTN News.
“Women deserve real medicine, not a mail-order workaround that benefits only the abortion industry,” AAPLOG continued. “‘Telehealth distribution’ of mifepristone would actually provide medical oversight — instead there is none. No exam, no ultrasound, no screening for coercion and no doctor accountable when patients are harmed.”
“This is a transaction, it’s not a medical interaction. Women and their preborn children deserve better,” AAPLOG stated. “The Supreme Court must allow the 5th Circuitʼs ruling to stand.”
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