US court blocks mail-order access to abortion drugs, for now

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

49% : The 2023 U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulation removed a requirement that mifepristone be dispensed in person.
49% : Nearly half of states have banned or severely restricted abortion ⁠since the U.S. Supreme Court rolled back its recognition of a woman's constitutional right to the procedure in 2022.
49% : Medication abortion is a two-drug regimen consisting of mifepristone, which is used in about two-thirds of U.S. abortions, followed by misoprostol, used to terminate a pregnancy within the first 10 weeks.
46% : That has driven a surge in medication abortion, which has spurred a series of legal battles over access to the drugs.
46% : " Five other Republican-led states are pursuing two separate lawsuits over FDA abortion drug regulations, including the initial approval 26 years ago.
44% : "We are alarmed by this court's decision to ignore the FDA's rigorous science and decades of safe use of mifepristone in a case pursued by extremist abortion opponents," GenBioPro CEO Evan Masingill said in a statement.
43% : In states where abortion is legal and doctors are permitted to prescribe drugs via telehealth, fewer than 2% of prescriptions for abortion drugs are filled in person, according to research from the University of Southern California.
43% : Drug companies GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories have intervened in Louisiana's lawsuit to defend the FDA regulation.
42% : "Reimposing medically unnecessary in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone will send shockwaves of chaos and confusion across the country and dramatically upend patients' ability to obtain abortion care," Baden said in a statement.
40% : He said that "every abortion facilitated by FDA's action cancels Louisiana's ban on medical abortions."
38% : Series of legal battles Restricting access to mifepristone, including through telehealth appointments with out-of-state providers, has been a top priority for Republican-led states that have banned abortion, including Louisiana.
35% : " The decision is not the final word on the issue, but is for now the most sweeping threat to abortion access since the Supreme Court rolled back abortion rights in 2022, said Kelly Baden, vice president at the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy group.
21% : Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan cites lack of scientific basis for rule A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked a federal rule allowing the abortion drug mifepristone to be dispensed through the mail, significantly curtailing access to the drug nationwide and particularly in states that have banned abortion.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.