Mifepristone is one of two drugs that can be used before the 10th week of pregnancy to terminate a pregnancy and treat miscarriage.(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The United States Supreme Court issued a temporary stay from the appeals court’s ruling on Friday, which blocked remote access to the abortion drug, restoring access until at least May 11.
The administrative suspension issued by Justice Samuel Alito is stayed Friday’s decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling blocked a 2023 rule adopted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that allowed mifepristone – one of two drugs used to terminate pregnancies before 10 weeks and treat miscarriages – to be prescribed without an in-person visit to a doctor, and to allow it to be mailed to recipients in states with abortion bans.
“The administrative stay is temporary, and I am confident that life and the law will ultimately prevail,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, said in a statement.
Thirteen states, including Louisiana, have near-total abortion bans. In October, Murrill sued the FDA, claiming the rule undermined state law and caused financial harm because the state paid $92,000 in Medicaid bills to two women who needed emergency care in 2025 for mifepristone-related complications.
In the years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision allowing states to regulate abortion access, telehealth prescriptions for abortion medications have become increasingly popular, with more than 27% of all abortions performed this way in 2025, according to the Family Planning Society.
“While this is a positive development in the short term, no one can rest easy when our ability to obtain this safe, effective drug to treat abortion and miscarriage continues to hang in the balance,” Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. “The Supreme Court must put an end to this baseless attack on our reproductive freedom once and for all.”
The case could be similar to the one that unfolded in 2023, after U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas issued a ruling that would have completely taken away access to the abortion drug mifepristone.
The U.S. Supreme Court intervened shortly after that ruling and left mifepristone available until the case was heard by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ultimately decided that further restrictions were warranted but did not withdraw its approval of the drug. The Supreme Court officially took up the case a few months later and in June 2024 unanimously ruled that plaintiffs suing the FDA lacked standing, keeping access to mifepristone intact.
Under Alito’s order, attorneys’ responses in the latest case are expected to be submitted to the Supreme Court by Thursday.
Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at: kmoseley@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by state linewhich is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes the Ohio Capital Journal and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
