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Rights advocates swiftly sounded the alarm on Friday after the infamously far-right U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit temporarily blocked a federal rule allowing mifepristone to be dispensed by mail, dramatically curtailing access to the medication — commonly used for abortion and early miscarriage care — nationwide, particularly in states with policies hostile to reproductive freedom.

Just months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority reversed Roe v. Wade, the Food and Drug Administration permanently lifted mifepristone’s in-person dispensing requirement in early 2023, under then-President Joe Biden. Louisiana — which has among the nation’s most restrictive abortion policies — challenged the FDA’s move.

A federal judge in Louisiana paused that lawsuit last month while President Donald Trump’s administration conducts an FDA review that seems “designed to manufacture an excuse for further restricting medication abortion across the country,” as Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, warned at the time.

After a panel from the appellate court overturned that decision and revived the in-person dispensing rule on Friday, Kaye declared that “anti-abortion politicians have just made it much harder for people everywhere in the country to get a medication that abortion and miscarriage patients have been safely using for more than 25 years.”

“Louisiana’s legal attack on mifepristone shamelessly packaged lies and propaganda as an excuse to restrict abortion — and the 5th Circuit rubber-stamped it,” she continued. “This decision defies clear science and settled law and advances an anti-abortion agenda that is deeply unpopular with the American people. For countless people, especially those who live in rural areas, face intimate partner violence, or live with disabilities, losing a telemedicine option will mean losing access to this vital medication altogether.”

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