{"id":885219,"date":"2026-05-07T22:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/885219\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:18:19","slug":"what-to-know-about-the-federal-rule-that-texans-have-used-to-mail-in-abortion-pills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/885219\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about the federal rule that Texans have used to mail in abortion pills"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May, Texans\u2019 access to abortion drug mifepristone was thrown into disarray<\/a> after a federal appeals court ruled that people across the country must obtain the drug in person, and then, three days later, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked that ruling.<\/p>\n

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals\u2019 ruling, stemming from a Louisiana lawsuit, blocks a 2023 Food and Drug Administration rule allowing mifepristone to be delivered by mail \u2014 a provision commonly used to get around Texas\u2019 abortion ban. With the Supreme Court\u2019s temporary pause on the 5th Circuit\u2019s ruling scheduled to expire Monday evening, the future of Texans\u2019 access to mifepristone remains unclear.<\/p>\n

Abortion advocates condemned the ruling as a gateway into a national abortion ban, while anti-abortion groups heralded the 5th Circuit\u2019s decision as a first step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what to know about the drug, court ruling and more.<\/p>\n

Are abortion pills illegal in Texas? <\/p>\n

\nMifepristone and misoprostol, pills commonly taken to end a pregnancy, are not illegal in Texas and often prescribed to manage miscarriages, but it is illegal to supply them for elective abortions because of Texas\u2019 ban on abortions. <\/p>\n

Providing abortion pills in violation of the state\u2019s abortion ban can result in criminal charges. Over the summer, a North Texas man was charged with capital murder<\/a> after slipping mifepristone into his girlfriend\u2019s food and she miscarried. That case is still pending.<\/p>\n

Additionally, state law<\/a> allows private citizens to sue virtually anyone who assists in providing abortion, including medical professionals, companies that facilitate the movement of abortion pills into the state and family or friends who purchase pills for a pregnant person. Any individual can file the suit to seek up to $100,000, a provision commonly referred to as a \u201cbounty hunter\u201d law.<\/p>\n

Women who seek out abortions or take abortion pills are exempt from criminal charges or lawsuits under Texas\u2019 abortion restrictions.<\/p>\n

Despite Texas laws that penalize the supply of abortion pills, thousands enter Texas from 22 other states with \u201cshield laws.\u201d Texas has sued medical providers in New York<\/a>, Delaware<\/a> and California<\/a> who have sent abortion pills over alleged violations of Texas\u2019 abortion restrictions, but those states\u2019 shield laws provide civil and criminal protections over their healthcare providers against Texas\u2019 legal actions. These providers continue to provide prescriptions, often through telehealth appointments, to people in states like Texas that have abortion bans. <\/p>\n

Roughly 25% of abortions nationwide are done through telehealth, an estimate that is \u201clikely an undercount\u201d because it may not include those having abortions illegally, University of California Davis Law professor Mary Ziegler, said. <\/p>\n

What does the ruling restrict and why?<\/p>\n

The 5th Circuit\u2019s ruling on May 1 only restricts mail access to mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used in medication abortions, including in managing miscarriages. The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, and also approved two generic versions of the drug in 2019 and 2025. Multiple studies have shown the drug to be a safe and effective<\/a> means of ending a pregnancy.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the FDA established a rule allowing doctors to prescribe mifepristone remotely and for the drug to be mailed to patients, including those in Texas from other states where abortion is legal. The May 1 ruling overturned that rule, arguing it was put in place without proper FDA review of the drug\u2019s effects.<\/p>\n

If the 5th Circuit\u2019s ruling stands and the 2023 rule goes away, people will not be charged with a crime for possessing or using mifepristone and the drug would still be available for in-person prescription. Mifepristone is solely used in ending pregnancies, unlike the second drug it is commonly paired with, misoprostol, which is used to treat ulcers but prescribed off-label<\/a> to end pregnancies.<\/p>\n

Pairing mifepristone and misoprostol helps the body to safely speed up the passing of pregnancy-related tissue<\/a>, which is particularly important during miscarriages to avoid complications like increased bleeding, infection, scarring of the uterus and future invasive procedures. <\/p>\n

The Supreme Court\u2019s temporary block of the 5th Circuit\u2019s ruling on May 4 restored medical providers\u2019 ability to provide the drug through mail after a brief pause. The order expires on May 11 at 5 p.m. EST unless the court extends the block. Rachel Rebouche, a University of Texas at Austin law professor, said the Supreme Court\u2019s order was unsurprising and likely designed to offset disruption in medical care caused by mifepristone\u2019s sudden unavailability. The court\u2019s one-page order<\/a> did not provide an explanation for the block. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to have a legal status for a drug that thousands and thousands of people use flicker,\u201d Rebouche said. \u201cJust maintaining the status quo is a way to damp down the confusion that occurs when something changes overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will out-of-state organizations that mail abortion pills stop sending them to Texas?<\/p>\n

While mailing of mifepristone is expected to stop if the Supreme Court\u2019s temporary block expires and the 2023 FDA rule goes away, abortion pills will still be mailed into the state. That\u2019s because providers will likely switch to misoprostol-only prescriptions, Ziegler and Rebouche said.<\/p>\n

Studies have shown<\/a> misoprostol-only abortions to also be safe, and the prescription is commonly used around the world, Ziegler said, but may come with additional side effects and potential for complications.<\/p>\n

Shield laws would not protect the continued mailing of mifepristone under the 5th Circuit\u2019s ruling and the 2023 FDA rule\u2019s withdrawal because mailing the drug would violate federal regulations and result in penalties. But, the switch to exclusively sending misoprostol would likely make that moot, Ziegler and Rebouche said. <\/p>\n

What are anti-abortion advocates saying about pulling the 2023 FDA rule? <\/p>\n

Texas Right to Life president John Seago described the ruling as a restoration of a \u201ccommon sense safeguard,\u201d but stopped short of calling the ruling a full win, as he and other anti-abortion groups have urged the federal government to get more involved in halting abortion access.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not an ultimate victory by any stretch of the imagination,\u201d Seago said.<\/p>\n

Seago said that the FDA could pause distribution of abortion pills nationally, and suggested that President Donald Trump could enforce a 150-year-old federal law called the Comstock Act<\/a> to ban mail access to mifepristone and misoprostol. Texas joined Florida<\/a> in filing a lawsuit in December seeking to challenge the FDA\u2019s approval of mifepristone, arguing the agency did not properly evaluate the drug and also citing the Comstock Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rhetorical point we\u2019ve been making is, we expect more and have higher expectations of the federal government, [and] for the FDA there\u2019s a couple of things immediately they can do,\u201d Seago said. <\/p>\n

Rebouche said the FDA or Trump administration can\u2019t simply \u201csnap their fingers\u201d and suspend availability of the two drugs, both because the FDA has not shown an immediate harm from the drugs and because any changes would likely be immediately sued and enjoined by a court.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomewhere, a court will do that, because there isn\u2019t credible evidence that mifepristone is in any way dangerous or not effective,\u201d Rebouche said.<\/p>\n

What are abortion advocates saying about the latest ruling?<\/p>\n

Groups that support and help assist access to abortion nationwide called the 5th Circuit\u2019s ruling and subsequent stay from the Supreme Court \u201cchaos\u201d as access to mifepristone was limited and subsequently restored over the course of a few days. They say the latest court actions further chills people from trying to obtain the drug because they think it\u2019s illegal, even though the drug itself is not. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s stay gives patients and providers only a brief moment to breathe as the dust settles on the most severe blow to abortion access since Dobbs,\u201d Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju said on Monday when the Supreme Court issued its temporary block.<\/p>\n

In states where abortion is still legal, advocacy groups have pushed for legislators to pass and bolster shield laws allowing residents in states like Texas to maintain access in part through telehealth prescriptions. The courts\u2019 rulings underscore the unpredictable nature of the courts and need for federal abortion protections, Timmaraju said in her statement. <\/p>\n

\u201cBlocking the baseless in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone from going into effect for a week may help to offset some disruptions to care following the Fifth Circuit ruling last week \u2014 but the underlying threat to access remains just as dire as it was before,\u201d said Kelly Baden, vice president for public policy at the Guttmacher Institute in a statement.<\/p>\n

When will a permanent decision be made about mifepristone?<\/p>\n

It is currently unclear when the 5th Circuit or the Supreme Court may rule more definitively on the 2023 FDA rule, as the blocking of the 2023 rule came \u201cvery quick on the draw\u201d in the appellate court case, Ziegler said. <\/p>\n

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In May, Texans\u2019 access to abortion drug mifepristone was thrown into disarray after a federal appeals court ruled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[119411,7,7712,221,253,2368,6,4239,222,7714],"class_list":["post-885219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-texans","tag-abortion","tag-football","tag-health-care","tag-houston","tag-houston-texans","tag-houstontexans","tag-nfl","tag-politics","tag-texans","tag-texas-legislature"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116535617322463311","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}