A federal appeals court agreed late Tuesday to maintain the availability of an abortion pill but only under strict conditions that prohibit its use beyond seven weeks of pregnancy and bar its distribution by mail.

In a 42-page order, the three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to temporarily block the central aspect of a Texas-based federal judge’s ruling that reversed the FDA’s 2000 approval of the drug — mifepristone. But by a 2-1 vote, the panel also permitted other aspects of the lower-court ruling to take effect that would block a seven-year effort by the FDA to widen access to the drug.

Among the policies temporarily blocked by the court’s order: the FDA’s decision to expand mifepristone’s availability from seven to 10 weeks of pregnancy; narrowing from three to one the number of in-person office visits required for a mifepristone prescription; allowing non-physicians to prescribe or administer the drug; and eliminating a requirement for prescribers to report “non-fatal adverse events” related to mifepristone.

Reining in the drug’s availability while keeping it on the market is likely to dramatically diminish its usefulness to patients seeking to terminate pregnancies in Republican-led states where severe restrictions on abortion kicked in or were passed after the Supreme Court overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion last June.