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Supreme Court extends freeze on abortion pill restrictions

Adriel Bettelheim

Abortion pills — Photo: Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

The Supreme Court extended a freeze Monday on new restrictions for dispensing the widely used abortion pill mifepristone, allowing the continued mail-order prescribing of the drug.

Why it matters: The extension, which runs through 5 p.m. Thursday, provides a reprieve for pharmacies, telehealth companies and clinicians caught up in the latest legal tussle over accessing the pill.

Driving the news: Justice Samuel Alito extended a stay he granted a week ago in response to requests from drugmakers Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro to restore access to mifepristone via teleprescribing and the mails.

Anti-abortion advocates have been calling for a rollback of a Biden administration policy that expanded access to mifepristone and removed a requirement that patients see a provider in person before getting the medication.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month sided with Louisiana in a case challenging the Biden administration rules.
Louisiana argued the federal rules undermined its laws protecting unborn human life and caused it to spend Medicaid funds on emergency care for women harmed by mifepristone.

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Supreme Court extends freeze on abortion pill restrictions

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