On May 14, in an “unreasoned order,” the U.S. Supreme Court sided with mifepristone manufacturers, allowing their drugs to be illegally mailed into pro-life states.
Only Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. Thomas put it plainly: “Applicants are not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise. They cannot, in any legally relevant sense, be irreparably harmed by a court order that makes it more difficult for them to commit crimes.”
Yet the court granted their relief.
Intentional or not, the ruling sends a brutal message: Drug-trafficking profits count for more than state sovereignty—and more than unborn lives.
Thomas’ dissent focused on a federal law called the Comstock Act, which in no uncertain terms makes the mailing of mifepristone unlawful under existing federal law. But even setting Comstock aside, his conclusion still holds.
The manufacturers’ primary rationale for relief (dismissing their tired standing arguments) was that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit’s halt on mail-order abortions made it more difficult for them to commit crimes. The bottom line: Their attempts to recast their supposed harms as lost revenue from lawful mifepristone sales blink reality. The money is in the contraband.
Nearly 9,000 of Danco’s and GenBioPro’s drugs enter pro-life states with “total abortion bans” each month, by the abortion industry’s own estimates. It’s more than 14,000 unlawful drugs per month total, if you count the drugs circumventing state-based in-person dispensing requirements and gestational age limits.
The bulk of this order’s impact is in pro-life states, where the drugs are entering unlawfully. Just look at the macro-level data. Mail-order abortion drugs account for roughly 10 to 11 percent of all abortions in pro-abortion states like New York and California. Compare that to pro-life states like North Dakota, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas, where mail-order drugs account for 100 percent of all abortions. That’s right, 100 percent. These are the states the Supreme Court’s decision will impact most.
The manufacturers laughably insist that the blame for this unlawful activity lies not with them, but with their prescribers. Reality says otherwise.
Danco’s own webpage, "How Do I Get Mifeprex?," directly links to the sites that facilitate the unlawful mailing of mifepristone into pro-life states. Indeed, these facilitators exist to peddle mifepristone into states where it’s illegal. Here’s one example.
Plan C
The headline for this website reads: “Abortion pills by mail in every state.” A ribbon now tells the public that “Abortion pills remain available in all 50 states” because of the Supreme Court’s order.
Funny, I thought they were illegal in at least a few.
One of Plan C’s founders is Francine Coeytaux. If that last name sounds familiar to you, it’s likely because you’ve seen it before. Francine is the sister of California doctor Remy Coeytaux—the doctor who fulfilled an order for unlawful abortion drugs from Rosalie Markezich’s boyfriend in 2023, who in turn coerced her to take them. Rosalie is the individual plaintiff standing up against the FDA and the drug manufacturers who helped facilitate the scheme that ended her child’s life.
Let that sink in.
GenBioPro’s patient resources page similarly links many of the same facilitators. Here’s another:
I Need An A
This site notes that abortions are “banned” in Louisiana, but “[p]eople in Louisiana are ordering abortion pills online,” with legal risk. But rest assured: “what laws say and what happens in reality can be very different.” The site cross-directs users to Plan C and other facilitators that mail the drugs to all 50 states.
Danco and GenBioPro cannot link women to these distributors and then attempt to blame their certified prescribers for the deluge of unlawful activity that follows. The Supreme Court should have rejected this false finger-pointing and denied the manufacturers’ petition to reverse the 5th Circuit’s ruling. Their bottom line should never have overshadowed the real harms inflicted on unborn children, their mothers, and the states trying to protect them both.
Instead, we return to the 5th Circuit, and we fight on.
Gabriella McIntyre serves as legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Life.