The Supreme Court of the United States temporarily upheld access by mail to an abortion pill, mifepristone, used in a vast majority of abortions in the country.
The highest American court extended its suspension of the decision made on May 1 by an ultraconservative appeals court, which temporarily blocked the mailing of this abortion pill, thus preventing American women from accessing it in their mailboxes.
This suspension will remain in effect until the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, decides whether to take up the case or not.
The nine judges had until Thursday to rule on the legal challenge filed by the laboratories Danco and GenBioPro, which manufacture mifepristone, a medication used in medical abortions – which accounted for nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States in 2023.
At least two conservative judges, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, disagreed with the decision.
In their request to the Supreme Court, Danco argued that the suspension of mail delivery “causes immediate confusion and disruption for manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, pharmacies and patients across the country” for “highly time-sensitive medical decisions.”
“What happens when patients go to pharmacies today to get the pill prescribed by a provider yesterday? What should a patient do if she cannot get an in-person appointment immediately?” he questioned.
In the United States, one in four people who had a medically supervised abortion by early 2025 did so via a telemedicine prescription, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a leading organization on the subject.
Suspending mail delivery of the abortion pill would further restrict access to elective abortion in a country where, since 2022 and the historic Supreme Court ruling, the right to abortion is no longer guaranteed at the federal level and is now in the hands of each state.
It was a procedure initiated by Louisiana, a state that has adopted some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, that led to the decision of the ultraconservative appeals court.
In 2024, the Supreme Court had already rejected an attempt to restrict access to mifepristone for procedural reasons, finding that abortion opponents and the doctors behind the challenge did not have legal standing to act.
Mifepristone is generally used in combination with misoprostol for medical abortions in the United States.
