Appeals court blocks mailing of abortion pill mifepristone in U.S.

U.S. Appeals court blocks mailing of abortion pill mifepristone in U.S. May 1, 2026 / 7:24 PM EDT / CBS/AP Add CBS News on Google A federal appeals court on Friday restricted access to one of the most common means of abortion in the U.S. by blocking mailing of prescriptions of mifepristone.A panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is requiring that the abortion pill be distributed only in person at clinics."Every abortion facilitated by FDA's action cancels Louisiana's ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that 'every unborn child is human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person,'" the ruling states.In their ruling, the judges stated that the current regulation "creates an effective way for an out-of-state prescriber to place the drug in the hands of Louisianans in defiance of Louisiana law." Judges have long deferred to the Food and Drug Administration's judgments on the safety and appropriate regulation of drugs.FDA officials under President Trump have repeatedly stated the agency is conducting a new review of mifepristone's safety, at the direction of the president.The judges noted in their ruling that the FDA "could not say when that review might be complete and admitted it was still collecting data."  In a court filing, Louisiana's attorney general and a woman who says she was coerced into taking abortion pills requested that the FDA rules be rolled back to when the pills were allowed to be prescribed and dispensed only in person. A Louisiana-based federal judge last month ruled that those allowances undermined the state's abortion ban but stopped short of undoing the regulations immediately.Since the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed enforcement of abortion bans, prescriptions by mail have become a major way that abortions are provided — including to states where bans are in place. "Louisiana's legal attack on mifepristone shamelessly pack...