South Court Pushes Right, Supreme Court Steps Back

The Supreme Court recently put a hold on a decision by the Fifth Circuit, an appeals court that covers Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. That court had briefly stopped doctors from sending the abortion pill mifepristone by mail and through telemedicine. The Supreme Court’s move shows it can check a court that is even more conservative than itself. The Fifth Circuit has become a favorite place for conservatives to try to change the law. Most of its judges were appointed by Republican presidents, including six by Donald Trump. It has ruled on hot topics like abortion, guns and religious freedom, often in ways that the Supreme Court would not agree with. Because of this pattern, liberal groups appeal many Fifth Circuit cases to the Supreme Court. In recent terms, the high court has heard more than a dozen cases from this circuit each year and has overturned it in most of them. Only once in the current term has the Supreme Court agreed with a Fifth Circuit ruling.In the pill case, the Fifth Circuit said that a federal rule from the Biden era—one that lets doctors prescribe mifepristone over the phone and ship it to patients—was not scientifically justified. The court also argued that such a rule would weaken Louisiana’s abortion ban, which was put in place after the Supreme Court ended Roe v. Wade. Manufacturers of the pill asked for an emergency pause, and the Supreme Court complied almost immediately. Earlier this year it also struck down a Fifth Circuit decision that had limited access to the pill, saying those who challenged it did not have standing. Other fights are moving forward. The ACLU plans to challenge a Texas law that requires schools to display the Ten Commandments, and a Fifth Circuit judge has defended his originalist approach. He claims that judges who follow the Constitution’s original meaning are often criticized and dismissed by “cultural elites, ” suggesting that it can be easier to follow popular opinion than to do what the law demands. The Supreme Court’s actions signal that even when a lower court leans far to the right, the nation’s top judicial body can step in and reset the balance.