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The Supreme Court restored telehealth access to abortion pills on Thursday in an emergency order that provoked seething dissents from Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. With just the two noted dissents, the court halted a decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had prohibited providers across the country from prescribing and mailing mifepristone through telemedicine. Blue states have preserved access to this drug, the first used in a medication abortion, by authorizing their providers to prescribe and mail the pills across state lines. At Louisiana’s request, the 5th Circuit had tried to halt this flow from mifepristone into states that criminalize reproductive health care, but SCOTUS has kept the pipeline open—for now. In dissent, Thomas accused these providers of participating in a “criminal enterprise” and implied that they should be imprisoned. Alito, meanwhile, fumed that blue states had undermined his decision overturning Roe v. Wade by outsmarting anti-abortion lawmakers.
