Tallahassee, FL: State Representative Dr. Anna V. Eskamani, representing District 42, today released the following statement after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a lower-court ruling that would have ended telehealth and mail-order access to mifepristone, allowing access to continue while Louisiana v. FDA proceeds:
“I welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to keep mifepristone available by mail and through telehealth. This is the right outcome, and a relief for patients, providers, and families across the country who briefly faced losing access to safe, essential care. The medical evidence here is undisputed. The two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol is safe and highly effective, with a safety record strong enough that the FDA — after careful review — approved its distribution without a mandatory in-person visit. The Fifth Circuit’s order ignored that evidence and would have substituted politicians’ judgment for that of doctors and scientists. The Supreme Court was right to put it on hold.
This decision matters everywhere, but it matters acutely here in the South. Roughly a quarter of all abortions in this country now happen through telehealth. Cutting that off overnight would have been devastating. But I want to be clear-eyed: this is a pause, not a resolution. The threat to access is real and ongoing. We will keep fighting, in the Legislature and alongside our communities, to protect access to reproductive health care in all its forms and to ensure that medical decisions are made by patients and their doctors, not by politicians.”
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