A federal appeals court on Friday night blocked the nationwide sale of mifepristone, also known as the abortion pill, after the state of Louisiana sued the federal government for allowing it to be sold during telehealth appointments and mailed to patients. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo
May 1 (UPI) — A federal appeals court on Friday night issued a ruling that enacts a nationwide block on the prescription of the abortion pills in telehealth appointments and mailing them to patients.
A three-judge panel on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state of Louisiana, which had used to end a Food and Drug Administration rule that allows doctors to prescribe mifepristone without having an in-person visit, ABC News, Politico and The New York Times reported.
Mifepristone was first approved by the FDA in 2000 for medical termination of pregnancy, and until the COVID-19 global pandemic required that the drug be prescribed to patients during in-person doctor’s appointments.
After enacting a strict abortion ban in 2022, Louisiana then moved to reclassify mifepristone as a controlled substance and criminalized its possession, effectively making it illegal in the state.
Although Louisiana had made it illegal to prescribe or possess in the state, people could obtain prescriptions from out-of-state doctors have virtual telehealth visits, with the mails mailed to people’s homes.
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the country in spring 2020 and forced much of in-person life to stop, doctors sued the FDA for an exception to the in-person requirement to prescribe mifepristone.
The agency in 2021 announced that it would exercise “enforcement discretion” because of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
After Roe v. Wade was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, several states across the country moved to outlaw most abortions, but mifepristone continued to be available through telehealth appointments and the mail.
Louisiana told the court that it needed relief because of an alleged influx of abortion pills to the state, making the argument that mail-delivered abortion pills endanger the safety of women there.
“We are alarmed by this Court’s decision to ignore the FDA’s rigorous science and decades of safe use of mifepristone in a case pursued by extremist abortion opponents,” Evan Masingill, CEO of GenBioPort, which manufacturers the drug, told Politico in a statement.
“We remain committed to taking any actions necessary to make mifepristone available and remain accessible to as many people as possible,” Masingill said.
