Supreme Court pauses ruling blocking delivery of abortion pills by mail

May 5, 2026

The U.S. Supreme Court has paused a lower court ruling halting the distribution of abortion pills by mail as the issue remains a source of contention in American politics.

The Christian Post reports that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito stayed an opinion issued by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, siding with the state of Louisiana in its challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s 2023 loosening of requirements to obtain the abortion drug mifepristone.

Danco Laboratories, a plaintiff in Louisiana’s lawsuit and the manufacturer of mifepristone, filed an application to the U.S. Supreme Court over the weekend asking the justices to issue a stay on an appellate court’s Friday decision.

The 5th Circuit Court’s ruling blocked changes to the requirements for distributing the abortion pill under the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) while litigation continues. 

Those changes involve removing the requirement that women seeking the abortion pill must visit a doctor in person.

According to the Christian Post, Friday’s appellate decision followed a lower court ruling that Louisiana was likely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the REMS modification as violating the Administrative Procedure Act but declined to issue a stay.

The Trump administration has faced criticism from pro-life advocacy groups in recent months for working to dismiss the Louisiana lawsuit amid an ongoing FDA safety review of the abortion pill.

A 2025 report by the conservative public policy think tank Ethics and Public Policy Center stated that 10.93% of women experienced adverse effects from mifepristone between 2017 and 2023 — significantly higher than the 0.5% rate listed on the drug’s label.

That report examined data from an all-payer insurance claims database covering 865,727 prescribed mifepristone abortions during that period.

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