The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that women can continue to access abortion drugs through the mail without making an in-person doctor’s visit, while a lawsuit continues against the practice.
Justices on the high court graned two emergency requests from Danco Laboratories and GenProBio, two makers of the abortion drug mifepristone.
The manufacturers challenged a ruling in Lousiana that upheld the state’s ban on prescribing abortion drugs without an in-person doctor’s visit. In 2023, the Biden administration finalized a rule to allow the drugs to be obtained without an in-person visit.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the majority’s decision. Alito said the litigation limits a state’s ability to make determinations on abortion, as granted in the high court’s 2022 decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion.
“Louisiana’s efforts have been thwarted by certain medical providers, private organizations, and States that abhor laws like Louisiana’s and seek to undermine their enforcement,” Alito wrote.
Thomas said allowing abortion drugs to be prescribed without an in-person doctors visit is a crime.
“[Danco Laboratories] cannot, in any legally relevant sense, be irreparably harmed by a court order that makes it more difficult for them to commit crimes,” Thomas wrote in his dissent.
In 2023, approximately two-thirds of all abortions in the United States were through medications.
As the case plays out, access to the abortion drug is expected to be uninterrupted until into next year. The high court could be petitioned again to rule on the merits of the lawsuit after litigation begins.
