The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily restored nationwide access to abortion pills via the mail.
The May 14 order stayed a ruling from the 5th Circuit that had temporarily paused access to the drug via mail when challenged by the state of Louisiana.
Manufacturers and distributors of the drug had sued over an earlier May ruling that froze mail access to the abortion drug.
🚨 The Supreme Court has temporarily restored nationwide access to mail-order abortion pills, staying a 5th Circuit ruling pending appeal. pic.twitter.com/26V1LhnYoG
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) May 14, 2026
Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. He wrote that he would deny the application "because they have not satisfied their burden for securing interim relief."
He said that mifepristone shipped to Louisiana, where abortion is mostly illegal, causes about 1,000 abortions a month. Using the mail to circumvent state abortion laws violated the Comstock Act, he wrote.
“Applicants are not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise," Thomas wrote. "They cannot, in any legally relevant sense, be irreparably harmed by a court order that makes it more difficult for them to commit crimes.”
Justice Samuel Alito also dissented.
“The Court’s unreasoned order granting stays in this case is remarkable," he wrote. "What is at stake is the perpetration of a scheme to undermine our decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U. S. 215 (2022), which restored the right of each State to decide how to regulate abortions within its borders. Some States responded to Dobbs by making it even easier to obtain an abortion than it was before, and that is their prerogative. Other States, including Louisiana, made abortion illegal except in narrow circumstances.”
The state of Louisiana’s lawsuit said that Medicaid paid $92,000 from two women who needed emergency care in 2025 caused by complications from out-of-state mifepristone.
25a1207_21p3 by scott.mcclallen
Justice Alito also dissented, calling the Court’s order “remarkable.” He argues that mail-order abortion pills are being used to undermine Dobbs and Louisiana’s abortion ban, allowing nearly 1,000 abortions per month in the state despite its post-Dobbs restrictions.
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) May 14, 2026
Lila Rose, the founder and president of LiveAction, a pro-life group, called the order "tragic and wrong."
The Supreme Court has allowed the mail order abortion pill regime to continue while litigation moves forward, enabling abortion businesses to ship deadly drugs across state lines and into states that have acted to protect preborn children," Rose said in a statement. "This is a direct assault on the right of states to defend innocent human life, and on the Fourteenth Amendment’s promise of equal protection, which must extend to every human being, born and preborn. Justice Thomas was exactly right: abortion pill companies are ‘not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise,’ and they cannot ‘claim harm from an order that makes it harder for them to commit crimes.’"
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