Courts may restrict access to the popular abortion medication mifepristone in the United States. Telehealth providers have backup plans in place. Abortion provider Carafem's phones were ringing nonstop over the weekend after a US federal appeals court reinstated a nationwide requirement that the drug mifepristone, one of two pills used for a medication abortion, must be obtained in person. The decision, handed down on Friday, left patients unsure if they could gain access to their treatment through telehealth. "People are afraid, and they're angry," says Carafem's chief operations officer, Melissa Grant. "I had people contact us saying, .

The United States Supreme Court has temporarily reinstated a rule allowing an abortion pill to be prescribed through telemedicine and dispensed through the mail, lifting a judicial ban that narrowed access to the medication nationwide. Justice Samuel Alito issued an interim order on Monday, pausing for one week a decision by the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals to reimpose an older federal rule requiring an in-person clinician visit to receive mifepristone. The Supreme Court's action, called an "administrative stay", gives the justices more time to review emergency requests by two manufacturers of mifepristone to ensure that the drug can be provided via telehealth and the mail while the legal challenge plays out. Alito ordered Louisiana to respond to the drugmakers' requests by Thursday and indicated that the administrative stay would expire on May 11. The court would be expected to extend the interim stay or formally decide the requests by that time.