A federal judge has suspended a rule that forced women to visit a doctor in person during the raging coronavirus pandemic to get access to an abortion pill. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang’s ruling will allow health-care providers to mail mifepristone out to patients for as long as the public-health emergency continues. In his ruling, Chuang said the “in-person requirements” for patients who want to get an abortion pill during the pandemic are likely unconstitutional. “By causing certain patients to decide between forgoing or substantially delaying abortion care, or risking exposure to COVID-19 for themselves, their children, and family members, the In-Person Requirements present a serious burden to many abortion patients,” Chuang wrote. The judge said the federal case will not supersede any state’s ability to to regulate abortion medication “above and beyond” federal requirements, but American Civil Liberties Union attorney Julia Kaye called the ruling a “tremendous victory for abortion patients and for science and common sense.”