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On May 1, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the mailing of mifepristone, a common abortion medication. The ruling restricted distribution and use of the medication to in-person clinic visits only, even as the number of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics has continued to shutter over the past year, and some red states blocked access to mail order pills.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deemed mifepristone a safe medication over 25 years ago in 2000, and over half of all abortions performed in the United States are facilitated using pills that can be prescribed via telemedicine appointments, especially as abortion bans fan out in deeply red parts of the country. This rose 10 percent in the three years following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Immediately after the ruling, two manufacturers responsible for mifepristone production — Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro — filed emergency appeals to counter the ban, and on May 14 the U.S. Supreme Court paused the 5th Circuit’s decision, allowing the distribution of abortion medication by mail to continue. This is a temporary action, however, as litigation continues to unfold.

The initial decision came from the state of Louisiana, which sued the FDA to block the mailing of mifepristone. Anti-abortion activists argued that the distribution of abortion pills and information via the mail and telemedicine circumvents the purpose of state-specific abortion bans. But such restrictions also hinder access for disabled people, people without health care, and others who do not have access to in-person abortion care in states without abortion bans. Once again, restrictions to abortion go hand in hand with classism, ableism, and racism to restrict access to abortion care to those who have the money and means to afford in-person health care.

And for historians, the 5th Circuit ruling echoes the Comstock Act of 1873, which prohibited the distribution of not only abortion medication and information but also “obscene” materials in the mail.

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