New Orleans, LA — The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just dropped a bombshell on the Virtual Back-Alley, staying the FDA’s Biden-era decision that opened the door for mail-order abortions, even in states where preborn children are legally protected.
The Virtual-Back Alley is the term Operation Rescue uses for the growing number of abortion businesses cashing in on lucrative telehealth and at-home abortions.
In 2023, the Biden FDA removed the requirement for an in-person visit for anyone seeking the two-drug abortion regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol. Since then, the fallout has been disastrous. Preborn children have been targeted as a new source of revenue in states where they have been deemed protected, full human persons. Women have suffered life-threatening abortion complications or even died while virtual suppliers hide behind shield laws in radicalized states like New York and California.
Other women have been dosed with abortion drugs by angry boyfriends and sexual predators, escalating the already serious problem of coercion to blatant forced abortion.
In October 2025, the abortion-free state of Louisiana took action and filed suit against the FDA for enabling out-of-state abortion businesses to prescribe and mail dangerous abortion drugs across their stateline.
In April, a lower court upheld the state’s ability to sue the FDA, even agreeing that Louisiana was “likely to win its challenge to the mifepristone regulation and was suffering irreparable harm from it.” However, it did not agree to reverse the removal of the in-person requirement for mifepristone while litigation was ongoing.
Yesterday, however, the federal appeals court granted that request, ordering the FDA to reinstate the 2023 in-person requirement nationwide.
Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, offered this statement:
“The Fifth Circuit Court has given preborn children targeted by the Virtual-Back Alley an incredible reprieve. Abortion businesses selling their kill pills across state lines depend wholly on the Biden FDA’s disastrous decision to remove nearly all restrictions surrounding mifepristone, especially the in-person requirement. If this decision stays in place, many abortion businesses that have spent the last three years wildly expanding their revenue with telehealth abortion could go broke before the case is finally decided. This a monumental win for the babies and a huge encouragement for those of us who have called on the current administration again and again to reinstate the regulations Biden’s FDA stripped away, leaving both women and preborn children vulnerable.”
