On May 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling that would ban the mailing of an abortion drug during litigation — an order that the court acknowledged would have nationwide effect.

Although the drugmakers quickly went to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking relief, the decision in Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration immediately upended the post-Roe landscape in the United States.

It was one of a trio of issues in which the appeals court and the district court judges who are subject to the court’s appellate jurisdiction sought to act this past week in ways that could have varying levels of control and influence outside of the Fifth Circuit states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

And though it is true that the Supreme Court has regularly reversed the Fifth Circuit in recent years, that — as I’ve written previously — paints a misleading picture, because many of the court’s rulings are also affirmed by the Supreme Court or not even reviewed by it. More importantly, this report explains why, regardless of what the Supreme Court ultimately does, the Fifth Circuit’s actions can be (and are often intended to be) extremely destabilizing in the interim.