The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision may be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Abortion pills are under RFK Jr.’s watch
USA TODAY wellness reporter Alyssa Goldberg covers why the abortion drug mifepristone will be reviewed by the FDA.
On May 1, a federal appeals court ruled that the abortion pill mifepristone cannot be obtained by mail, a move that is expected to significantly limit access to abortions in states with abortion bans.
The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit’s decision comes in response to a lawsuit brought by the state of Louisiana over a federal regulation that allows abortion providers to mail mifepristone, one of two abortion pills. State Attorney General Liz Murrill claimed that the regulation “led to a large number of illegal abortions in Louisiana” and “harmed thousands of women’s Medicaid bills.”
On Friday, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Murrill’s request to block a Food and Drug Administration federal rule that allowed the pills to be mailed.
“By eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement, FDA opened the door for remote prescribing of mifepristone to women in Louisiana. The record shows that this policy currently facilitates nearly 1,000 illegal abortions per month in Louisiana,” the justices wrote in an opinion released Friday. “A ruling in Louisiana’s favor would redress this injury because mifepristone would no longer be remotely prescribed to Louisiana residents.”
The justices noted in their opinion that their ruling would have national implications. This decision may be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill called the decision “a victory for life!”
Reproductive health advocates say the ruling is “the most sweeping threat to abortion since the Roe v. Wade reversal.”
Mifepristone is one of two abortion drugs. It is used in conjunction with another drug called misoprostol to terminate a pregnancy that is less than 70 days old. Misoprostol is also used to treat other medical conditions.
The drug was developed in France in the 1980s and has been approved in 96 countries, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
FDA regulators first approved mifepristone in 2000. Leading medical associations and health experts consider this drug to be safer than Tylenol and Viagra.
The combination of mifepristone and misoprostol has become the most common abortion method. More than half of abortions in the United States are due to abortion pills
Following the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the use of medical abortion pills increased dramatically. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a leading research organization that advocates for reproductive health, the pill was used in 53% of abortions in 2020. That rate rose to 63% of abortions in 2023.
Part of the drug’s increased use is due to a 2023 FDA rule that will allow mifepristone to be dispensed by mail.
The appellate court judges moved to block access to the pills based on the argument that mail-in access would “harm the state of Louisiana by undermining the law protecting fetal life and would require Medicaid funds to be spent on emergency medical care for women harmed by mifepristone.”
In their opinion, the justices cited the state’s evidence that it paid $92,000 in Medicaid costs to “two women in 2025 who required emergency treatment due to out-of-state mifepristone complications,” and a 2023 FDA label that found between 2.9 and 4.6 percent of women prescribed mifepristone required emergency treatment.
Reproductive rights organization Guttmacher called the claims of pill opponents “junk science.”
The group’s vice president for public policy issued a statement Friday night calling the ruling “the most sweeping threat to abortion since the reversal of Roe v. Wade.”
“This decision is surprising and a very worrying development,” said Guttmacher leader Kelly Baden. “While this is not the final decision on this case, this decision represents the most widespread threat to abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned.”
Louisiana Attorney General Murrill agreed in a statement that the decision would have far-reaching implications, but praised the outcome in a statement accusing former President Joe Biden of orchestrating an “abortion cartel.”
