US supreme court justice Samuel Alito has temporarily blocked lower court rulings which would have imposed temporary restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone that were set to go into effect this weekend.
Alito imposed a five-day stay after a ruling by a conservative federal judge in Texas, parts of which were then upheld by a conservative appellate court based in New Orleans. For now, access to medication abortion – the most common method of pregnancy termination in the US – is unchanged until at least Wednesday 19 April.