Supreme Court temporarily restores access to abortion pill mifepristone through telehealth, mail and pharmacies

Politics May 4, 2026 11:42 AM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday restored broad access to the abortion pill mifepristone, blocking a ruling that had threatened to upend one of the main ways abortion is provided across the nation. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. The order signed by Justice Samuel Alito temporarily allows women seeking abortions to obtain the pill at pharmacies or through the mail, without an in-person visit to a doctor. Those rules had been in effect for several years until a federal appeals court imposed new restrictions last week. The majority of abortions in the U.S. are obtained through medications, usually a combination of mifepristone and a second drug, misoprostol. Their availability has blunted the impact of abortion bans that most Republican-led states have started enforcing since a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed for state bans. WATCH: Underground networks for abortion pills appear as states limit access Louisiana sued to restrict access to mifepristone, asserting that its availability undermined the ban there. Some Democratic-led states have laws that seek to give legal protection to those