What does the abortion pill case mean for Florida access?

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday preserved access to a pill used for medication abortions, with the conservative leaning court unanimously ruling that opponents of the drug, mifepristone, didn’t have the ability to sue.

But what does that mean for Florida?

The court’s decision means that mifepristone access won’t be inhibited or rolled back for now — and that doctors can continue to prescribe it as they have been doing.

In Florida, limitations do exist, though, on when and how the pill can be prescribed. Since May, Florida has banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy in almost all cases, meaning surgical and medication abortions past that point are illegal. There are exceptions for when the health of the mother is at serious risk or when the pregnancy is the result of rape, incest or human trafficking, but that exception is only available up to 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Florida law also prohibits doctors from prescribing and sending abortion medication through the mail and requires that doctors dispense any medication in person.

But abortion medication is still making its way into the state from doctors in states that support abortion access. California, New York and other states have passed “shield laws” to protect providers from civil and criminal litigation if they send abortion medication into states where abortion is limited, like Florida. There’s no easy way to know how much medication is arriving in Florida.

Mifepristone can be used through 10 weeks of pregnancy, and is typically followed by the drug misoprostol (which was not challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court case) to ensure that the pregnancy is expelled.

Had mifepristone been banned in Florida, it likely would have meant abortion access would be further whittled down. Clinics have relied on medication abortion to see a greater number of patients in the smaller time frame they now have to legally work with. In Florida, nearly 60% of abortions performed were done with medication, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2021.