The United States Supreme Court has temporarily reinstated a rule allowing the abortion pill mifepristone to be prescribed via telemedicine and dispensed through the mail, lifting a judicial ban that narrowed access to the medication nationwide.
Justice Samuel Alito issued an interim order on Monday, pausing for one week a decision by the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals to reimpose an older federal rule requiring an in-person clinician visit to receive mifepristone. The 5th Circuit acted in a challenge to the rule by the Republican-led state of Louisiana.
The Supreme Court’s action, called an “administrative stay”, gives the justices more time to review emergency requests by two manufacturers of mifepristone to ensure that the drug can be provided via telehealth and the mail while the legal challenge plays out. Alito ordered Louisiana to respond to the drugmakers’ requests by Thursday and indicated that the administrative stay would expire on May 11.
The case puts the contentious issue of abortion back in front of the justices, who must confront another effort by abortion opponents to scale back access to mifepristone, with the November US congressional elections looming. The court in 2024 unanimously rejected an initial bid by anti-abortion groups and doctors to roll back FDA regulations that had eased access to the drug, ruling that these plaintiffs lacked the necessary legal standing.
Mifepristone, given FDA regulatory approval in 2000, is taken with another drug called misoprostol to perform medication abortions, a method that now accounts for more than 60 percent of all abortions in the US. The ongoing battles over abortion rights follow the court’s 2022 ruling that overturned its 1973 Roe v Wade precedent that had legalised abortion nationwide.
Louisiana sued the FDA last year, claiming that a rule adopted during the administration of former US President Joe Biden – a rule that eased access to mifepristone by eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement – is illegal and undermines the state’s abortion ban. The pill’s manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, and GenBioPro, which makes a generic version, intervened in the litigation to defend the 2023 regulation. The administration of current US President Donald Trump cited an ongoing review of safety regulations concerning mifepristone and opposed the state’s challenge.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the top court’s decision on Monday a “positive short-term development”. Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, welcomed the decision but said, “This fight is just beginning.” Republican Senator Josh Hawley cited disputed findings on the health risks associated with mifepristone, urging lawmakers to act and ban it completely for use in abortion.
Source: www.aljazeera.com