Supreme Court Allows Telehealth and Mail Access to Mifepristone for Now The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily upheld the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone through telehealth visits, preserving access for women while Louisiana’s legal challenge to its distribution continues in lower courts. The decision, issued nearly an hour after an earlier administrative stay on the drug’s access expired, paused a May 1 ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had mandated in-person visits for the medication. The high court’s order did not specify its reasoning or disclose the vote count, though Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued dissents. The ruling comes amid a contentious legal battle over mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortions, which has become central to abortion rights debates since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Louisiana, a conservative state with a strict abortion ban, filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its 2023 policy allowing telehealth access to mifepristone. The state argued the regulation undermined its laws and posed risks to public health. A federal district court in April partially supported Louisiana’s claim, ruling the FDA’s policy arbitrary due to insufficient safety data, but blocked its immediate enforcement to allow the agency time to review the drug. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals then issued an emergency stay in late April, requiring in-person visits for mifepristone, which triggered widespread chaos among medical providers and patients. The Supreme Court’s intervention halted that order, returning the case to the 5th Circuit for further review.#fda #supreme_court #louisiana #5th_circuit_court_of_appeals #mifepristone
Home Distilling Ban Struck Down After 158 Years A U.S. Appellate Court has overturned a federal prohibition on home distilling that had remained in place since the Reconstruction era, marking a significant legal shift. The ruling, issued by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 11, 2026, invalidated a law that criminalized the production of distilled spirits such as whiskey, vodka, and other hard liquors at home. The decision effectively ended a 158-year-old ban, which had imposed fines of up to $10,000 and prison terms of up to five years for violations. The case was brought by Hobby Distillers, a group of individuals and its four members, who challenged the law on constitutional grounds. The plaintiffs argued that the prohibition was an overreach of federal authority and violated their rights to engage in personal or recreational distilling. One of the plaintiffs, for example, claimed he had previously distilled alcohol for fuel near his garage and sought to experiment with a homemade apple-pie-vodka recipe. They contended that the law’s restrictions were unnecessary and infringed on personal freedoms. The appellate court rejected the federal government’s defense of the ban, which relied on the Constitution’s taxation clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. In a key portion of the ruling, Judge Edith Hollan Jones criticized the law as an “antirevenue provision” that suppressed the creation of distilled spirits rather than generating government revenue. She wrote that the ban’s intent was to prevent the existence of home-produced spirits, which would otherwise contribute to tax collections.#federal_government #hobby_distillers #5th_circuit_court_of_appeals #edith_hollan_jones #home_distilling_ban
