politics
Supreme Court Grants One-Week Stay on Fifth Circuit Order Limiting Telehealth Prescriptions of Mifepristone
The Supreme Court stayed a Fifth Circuit order blocking nationwide mail and telemedicine prescriptions of mifepristone through May 11, 2026. Louisiana urged the justices to allow the restrictions, while nearly two dozen Democratic-led states and former FDA leaders filed briefs defending access. Medication abortion accounts for nearly two-thirds of U.S. procedures.
May 7, 6:39 PM·2m read5 sources
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The Supreme Court on May 5, 2026, issued a one-week administrative stay that temporarily prevents a Fifth Circuit order from taking effect while the justices consider emergency applications in the case. The stay allows providers to continue prescribing mifepristone via telemedicine and mailing the drug to patients through May 11, 2026. The parties were directed to file briefs by May 7, 2026.
Louisiana asked the Supreme Court to allow the Fifth Circuit’s order to take effect immediately. In its filing, the state argued that the FDA’s 2023 formalization of telehealth and mail-order access for mifepristone undermines Louisiana’s abortion laws and causes the state irreparable harm.
Louisiana sued the FDA last fall, contending that the agency exceeded its authority by removing long-standing in-person requirements that had been in place since the drug’s approval.
Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote a 19-page opinion for the Fifth Circuit stating that telemedicine access to mifepristone injures Louisiana “by undermining its laws protecting unborn human life” and “by causing it to spend Medicaid funds on emergency care for women harmed by mifepristone.” Duncan wrote that both injuries “are irreparable.”
A district court had placed Louisiana’s challenge on hold in April 2026. Louisiana appealed that decision to the Fifth Circuit. The state became the first to schedule mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances in 2024. Its law requires prescribers to obtain special licensure, mandates that the drugs be stored under lock and key, and requires all prescriptions to be tracked through a state database.
Anyone possessing the pills without a valid prescription faces fines or jail time.
In December 2024, two months after the law took effect, a doctor performing an emergency C-section had to retrieve misoprostol from a locked pharmacy cabinet across the hospital; the drug had previously been kept within arm’s reach on delivery-room trays.
