Nation Sits Tight to See if SCOTUS Will Preserve—or Vanish—the Right to a Telehealth Abortion

The U.S. Supreme Court is apparently planning to issue its final say on the fate of telehealth abortions—aka a necessary, if not life-saving, lifeline to accessing care—by Thursday, and, well, don’t you just fucking love waiting with bated breath to see what reproductive rights (or lack thereof) we have in store? 

Technically, we were supposed to know what this decision was by Monday. Or at least, that was the deadline Justice Samuel Alito gave earlier this month, when he issued an administrative stay that (temporarily) restored broad access to mifepristone, days after a federal appeals court tried to take it away. (More on this later.) But SCOTUS, apparently, needed a few more days to think things out. 

“No one should have to wait on the edge of their seat to find out what their rights are from day to day—and yet that’s what this does for people across this country,” Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, told Jezebel in a statement. “With today’s order, we’re back to playing the waiting game until Thursday evening.” 

A justice is probably writing a dissent from the court’s decision on this emergency application … pray it is Alito

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) May 11, 2026 at 8:43 PM

 

The administration for most of this year has been trying to put a pause on its anti-abortion agenda, given a risky midterms season and the fact that most Americans on both ends of the aisle support abortion access… though other GOP states have not been getting the message. Earlier this year, Louisiana advanced a lawsuit suing the FDA over mifepristone access, despite the Justice Department pleading with them to not to—a case in which all of this stems. 

In early May, the notoriously conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, responding to a requested temporary injunction issued by Louisiana, tried to halt telehealth abortions across the nation—including in states where abortion is still a protected right. The decision has since caused chaos and turmoil; threatened to intimidate telehealth providers from operating across the country; and also threatened shield laws, which allow providers in states where abortion is still protected to send abortion pills to states where it is banned. (It’s thanks to shield laws that telehealth abortions accounted for nearly 27% of abortions in the first half of 2025—a reminder that abortion bans do not stop people from getting the life-saving care they need.) Shortly after the ruling, two mifepristone makers issued an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to block the appeals court decision; which was then followed by Alito’s administrative stay. 

It’s not clear exactly where SCOTUS plans to swing, but the fact that it’s not an immediate no-brainer is alarming enough. Mifepristone is safe—safer than Tylenol and Viagra; and it was deemed safe for more than a decade by multiple FDA studies. What’s more is the FDA recommendations on taking it were guided by real science and not any political animus; and a recent study affirmed there’s no actual good reason as to why it shouldn’t be an over-the-counter pill.

“The US Supreme Court extending its own deadline means care can continue as is for at least a few more days,” Kelly Baden, Vice President for Public Policy at the Guttmacher Institute, told Jezebel in a statement. “But once again, abortion patients and providers face the uncertainty, confusion and fear that anti-abortion policymakers and courts are inflicting on them—and the underlying threat to access remains just as dire as it was before.”