State of Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration

CASE UPDATE — MAY 4, 2026: The U.S. Supreme Court entered a temporary, one-week administrative stay, pausing the Fifth Circuit’s May 1 decision which imposed a medically unnecessary, nationwide in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone. The one-week pause allows justices to consider whether to block the Fifth Circuit’s ruling while the litigation proceeds.

If the Supreme Court refuses to block the Fifth Circuit’s order, it would mean that patients would need to travel to a health center to obtain mifepristone in person rather than getting it by mail or at a pharmacy after receiving care through telemedicine — upending access to a safe and effective medication used for abortion and early miscarriage care across the country, even in states where abortion is legal and protected by state law. Mifepristone has been safely and effectively dispensed using telemedicine for more than five years. Today, more than 1 in 4 people in the U.S. who have an abortion do so using telemedicine.

The Supreme Court’s order comes in a case filed by anti-abortion politicians in Louisiana seeking to overturn a decision made five years ago by the FDA, after reviewing extensive safety data and real life data, to lift the in person pick up requirement and allow patients to get mifepristone mailed to them or at a pharmacy as they do with virtually all other prescriptions.

If a federal court grants Louisiana’s request to impose restrictions on telemedicine, patients will no longer be able to fill their mifepristone prescription by mail or at a pharmacy being evaluated and counseled by a health care provider through telemedicine. Instead, patients all across the country—including in states where abortion is legally protected—will be required to pick up the pill in person at a hospital, clinic, or medical office, even when they have already received care through telemedicine and there is no medical reason for the travel.

Without this method of care delivery, patients using mifepristone would be forced to travel, sometimes hundreds of miles, to a health center just to pick up a pill, a requirement that leading medical authorities agree has no safety benefit. For some patients — especially people with low incomes, those living in rural areas, people with disabilities, younger people, and survivors of domestic violence — traveling to a clinic is an added barrier that can prevent them from getting an abortion altogether.

Mifepristone’s safety record has been confirmed by more than a hundred peer-reviewed studies and by leading medical authorities like the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Despite this scientific backing, in May 2025, the Trump administration announced that the FDA is conducting a new review of its mifepristone regulations, prompted by a debunked, self-published report from a Project 2025 sponsor. This report attacking mifepristone purposefully distorts the safety record of medication abortion and has been denounced by more than 260 expert researchers for its severe scientific flaws.