The United States Supreme Court has temporarily reinstated a rule allowing an abortion pill to be prescribed through telemedicine and dispensed through the mail, lifting a judicial ban that narrowed access to the medication nationwide.Justice Samuel Alito issued an interim order on Monday, pausing for one week a decision by the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals to reimpose an older federal rule requiring an in-person clinician visit to receive mifepristone.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThe 5th Circuit acted in a challenge to the rule by the Republican-led state of Louisiana.The Supreme Court’s action, called an “administrative stay”, gives the justices more time to review emergency requests by two manufacturers of mifepristone to ensure that the drug can be provided via telehealth and the mail while the legal challenge plays out.Alito ordered Louisiana to respond to the drugmakers’ requests by Thursday and indicated that the administrative stay would expire on May 11. The court would be expected to extend the interim stay or formally decide the requests by that time.Alito, one of the nine-member court’s six conservative justices, acted because he is designated by the court to oversee emergency matters that arise in a group of states that includes Louisiana.The case puts the contentious issue of abortion back in front of the justices, who must confront another effort by abortion opponents to scale back access to mifepristone, with the November US congressional elections looming.The court in 2024 unanimously rejected an initial bid by anti-abo …
