TUESDAY, May 5, 2026 (HealthDay News) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. issued an order Monday that allows patients to continue accessing abortion pill, mifepristone, by mail, for now.
The one-sentence order pauses a Friday ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans that required an in-person pickup for mifepristone, according to The Washington Post.
If the lower court ruling holds, healthcare providers could no longer prescribe the drug through telehealth and ship it to their patients. Instead, patients would have to pick up the prescription from their healthcare provider — a past U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requirement that was lifted during the pandemic in 2021.
About one-fourth of abortions in the United States are now provided through telemedicine, according to The New York Times.
Danco Laboratories, maker of the drug, and GenBioPro, manufacturer of its generic version, requested the immediate pause from the lower court ruling — one Danco described in its appeal as "unprecedented," according to The Post.
“Never before has a federal court purported to immediately enjoin a several years’ old drug approval; restrict a distribution system for that drug that manufacturers, providers, patients, and pharmacies have all been using for years; or reinstate conditions that FDA determined do not meet the mandatory statutory criteria,” Danco wrote.
In its emergency filing, GenBioPro wrote: “The order is deeply unsettling to drug sponsors, healthcare providers, patients, and the public — all of whom rely on FDA’s exercise of scientific judgment and orderly administration of the Nation’s complex system of drug regulation."
The FDA is conducting a review of mifepristone, and the Trump administration had requested the lower court put the case on hold until that's finished.
The pause issued by Alito will last until at least May 11, according to The Times, when the full court will then determine how to move forward.
More information:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more on mifepristone.
SOURCES: The Washington Post, May 4, 2026; The New York Times, May 4, 2026