A new Supreme Court order will continue to allow patients to get mifepristone—one of two drugs commonly used in U.S. medication abortions—via telehealth, through the mail, or from a pharmacy.
The Court on May 14, 2026 kept in place its stay of a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling blocking a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule that permitted a widely used abortion pill to be dispensed via telehealth or at a pharmacy.
The abortion-access case had been making its way through the courts since last year, when Louisiana sued the FDA over a 2023 rule change that allowed mifepristone to be prescribed remotely and dispensed through the mail or at a pharmacy. Previously, the agency had required the pill to be dispensed in-person at a clinic or other health facility.
The rule change greatly expanded access to telehealth abortion care, allowing health-care providers to serve patients living in states that banned abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
In her 2025 lawsuit, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill argued that the FDA’s 2023 policy ran afoul of the state’s near-total abortion ban. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed her a win on May 1, 2026, when it temporarily blocked the FDA’s rule, restricting mifepristone access nationwide.
The next day, GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories, the two pharmaceutical companies that manufacture mifepristone, filed emergency petitions with the Supreme Court. On May 4, the Court temporarily stayed, or paused, the Fifth Circuit’s block until May 11 and later extended the stay until May 14 at 5 p.m., which restored broad access to telehealth abortion care.
The Court released its decision shortly after its 5 p.m. stay had expired. According to the order, the stay will remain in place while the case challenging the Biden-era rule proceeds. If the case winds up back before the Court and is denied review, then the Fifth Circuit decision would take effect immediately.
Justice Clarence Thomas filed a dissent to the order, writing that because Louisiana argued that it is a criminal offense to ship abortion pills through “the mails” under the Comstock Act, the drug manufacturers should not be “entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise.”
Justice Samuel Alito also dissented, describing the FDA rule as a “perpetration of a scheme to undermine our decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.” He also took aim at state “shield laws” that protect providers in states with abortion access from attempts to prosecute them for helping patients in abortion-ban states access care.
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