On Friday, a three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the mailing of prescriptions of mifepristone violates the abortion ban of Louisiana and other states. The ruling requires that the abortion pill be distributed only in-person at clinics, even in states with no abortion restrictions.

Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, two makers of mifepristone and defendants in the Louisiana lawsuit that resulted in the Fifth Circuit ruling, immediately requested the Supreme Court to stay the lower-court order until it can be appealed on the merits. Danco warned that the ruling “injects immediate confusion and upheaval into highly time-sensitive medical decisions.” The Supreme Court did issue a temporary administrative stay until May 11.

Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs case in 2022, about 60 percent of abortions in the U.S. have been performed via medication, and about 1 in 4 have been prescribed via telehealth. Several states led by Democrats have enacted shield laws to protect providers who prescribe mifepristone to out-of-state women seeking to terminate pregnancies. These are also the subject of litigation.

To further complicate the legal tangle, the Fifth Circuit order bans the mailing of mifepristone, but not of misoprostol. The two are generally used in combination. Misoprostol alone also can be used to terminate pregnancies but is not as effective.

In a libertarian country, these and other restrictions on a woman’s control over her own body have proven monumentally unpopular. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, the right to end a pregnancy has been put on the ballot in 17 states; and choice advocates have won 14 of those measures including in Republican-leaning states such as Missouri, Montana, and Ohio. And now, Republicans are turning on each other.