(AFP) – The US Supreme Court on Monday temporarily lifted a lower court’s ban on mail delivery of the widely used abortion drug mifepristone. The top court’s order restores mail access to mifepristone, which is used in the majority of abortions in the United States, until at least May 11.
A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had halted nationwide mail delivery of mifepristone on Friday in a lawsuit brought against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by the southern state of Louisiana, which has some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country. Danco Laboratories, which manufactures mifepristone, asked the Supreme Court for a one-week pause on the appeals court order while it prepares to bring an emergency case to the top court. The Supreme Court agreed without explanation to block the appeals court ruling until at least May 11 while the parties file legal briefs.
Julia Kaye, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, welcomed the move. “While this is a positive short-term development, no one can rest easy when our ability to get this safe, effective medication for abortion and miscarriage care still hangs in the balance,” Kaye said in a statement. “The Supreme Court needs to put an end to this baseless attack on our reproductive freedom, once and for all.”
The 5th Circuit ruling would require women seeking abortions anywhere in the United States to obtain mifepristone in person from health clinics and ban delivery by mail or through a pharmacy after using telemedicine. The conservative-dominated appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that allowed mifepristone to continue to be delivered by mail while the FDA conducts a review of its regulations regarding the drug.
Mifepristone has been approved by the FDA since 2000 and is also routinely used for managing early miscarriages. Anti-abortion activists, however, have called the drug’s safety into question, with some citing a study conducted by a conservative think tank that never underwent a formal peer review. Mifepristone, which prevents pregnancy progression, and misoprostol, which empties the uterus, are approved to terminate a pregnancy up to 70 days of gestation in the United States.
Some 20 states have banned or restricted abortion since the Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that enshrined the constitutional right to abortion for half a century. Polls show a majority of Americans support continued access to safe abortion, even as conservative groups push to limit the procedure or ban it outright. In 2024, the US Supreme Court rejected a bid to restrict mifepristone, ruling that anti-abortion groups and doctors challenging the medication lacked the legal standing to bring the case.
– Chris Lefkow
© 2024 AFP
