The 2022 Supreme Court ruling, Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which nullified a woman's right to abortion from After 50 years of legality due to the Roe v.Wade ruling, it wasn't the last word. But as a consequence, abortion is illegal or almost illegal egal in 14 states, especially in the Southern states. In California and New York, on the other hand, it remains legal. Other states it prohibit after six weeks of gestation (before a third of women confirmed their pregnancy); others, at 12 weeks. 

The only way for many women is to order the pill mifepristone by mail after getting a prescription from a doctor via telemedicine. 

Mifepristone together with misoprostol causes abortion if taken during the first 12 weeks. This is the method currently used in more than 60% of cases; the other methods are surgical.  

Currently, one in every four abortions is the result of consultations carried out by telemedicine. Therefore, the number of abortions after the 2022 ruling did not decrease as feared but rather increased, from approximately 80,000 per month to 95,000. 

Both medicines were approved by the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) in September 2000.

Louisiana sued last year to ban this shipment and on April 30, a appeals court based in New Orleans agreed and reinstated an old FDA order demanding in-person medical consultation and that the pill s ea administered only in a clinic authorized for this purpose. That provision had been repealed in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, with new science-based regulation added during Joe Biden's presidency.

Danco Laboratories, a pharmaceutical that produces mifepristone, immediately appealed to the Supreme Court. Yesterday, this – in fact only the judge Samuel Alito who was “on call” – temporarily invalidated the lower court decision and restored access to that medication. 

The requirement to visit a doctor establishes an unnecessary and onerous barrier whose effect may be that these women desist from abortion, or On the contrary, seek to do it in an illegal and dangerous manner. This disproportionately affects rural, poor, and marginalized patients. 

It is premature to claim victory for those who support a woman's right to her own body. The pause of the supreme court is brief and will expire on May 11. A final decision will be by the plenary of the Supreme Court. 

Louisiana's insistence has nothing to do with women's health. It's political. It's part of the decades-long fight of conservative sectors of emi throw a national ban on abortion. Both pills are safe, as documented by decades of peer-reviewed research, and 7.5 million users.

But the mail ban is not limited to Louisiana. It's national, and also covers states where abortion is completely legal. 

In this way, it misrepresents Louisiana's argument that allowing mailing violated its own laws. Because prohibiting mailing violates the rights of the states that do allow abortion. 

The situation could lead to the abortion issue becoming key, with only 181 days until the crucial midterm elections of mandate, where the democrats intend to recover control of the House and the Republicans fight to preserve a narrow majority.

Since 2022, 17 states have submitted the issue to a popular vote; in 14 of them voters supported the right to abortion. 

The Supreme Court should reject the Louisiana's appeals court ruling and appeal; otherwise it will enable a new blow to abortion rights and make life more difficult for millions of women in the country.