DOJ Makes New Move In Court Fight Over Abortion Pill

The Justice Department moved Friday to block a lawsuit from Missouri challenging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for allowing the abortion drug mifepristone to be shipped through the mail. 

A filing from the DOJ argued that allowing the suit to move forward would inhibit a safety study on the abortion pill being conducted by the Trump administration. Missouri and several other Republican-led states have asked a judge to block a COVID-era policy that relaxed regulations for dispensing the abortion pill. 

“Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho are not the only plaintiffs to have challenged the current conditions of use for mifepristone,” the Justice Department wrote. “Given this widespread debate over the safety of mifepristone, FDA has concluded that the best path forward is for the agency to undertake its review based on all the evidence before the agency.”

The filing asked the judge to put the lawsuit on hold while the FDA reviews the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for mifepristone or dismiss the case altogether. It comes as pro-life advocates and lawmakers have called for the Trump administration to crack down on mail-order abortion pills. 

Last year, FDA Administrator Marty Makary and Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that they initiated the REMS review. The study has yet to be released, and pro-life lawmakers and advocates have grown impatient as abortions continue to increase in states where medication abortion is banned due to an influx of outside pills. 

A spokesman for the Justice Department told The Daily Wire that the intent of the filing was to allow the FDA to oversee drug policy, not the federal court system. 

“In this filing, the Department of Justice requested more time from the court for the FDA to complete its review of mifepristone REMS,” the spokesman said. “As the Supreme Court recognized in a unanimous ruling less than two years ago, it is the role of the FDA – not the federal courts – to evaluate drug safety data and impose appropriate precautions.”

The filing from the DOJ dismisses concerns from pro-life states that FDA policies allow abortionists to ship pills into their states. The department said that states “remain free to make and enforce their pro-life policies” and that the federal government is not “standing in the way of Intervenor Plaintiffs enforcing their abortion laws against out-of-state prescribers of mifepristone.”

The filing mirrors another one from January, where the DOJ asked a judge not to grant a request from Louisiana also seeking to block the FDA’s abortion pill mailing policy.

Data indicate that tens of thousands of abortions are still happening in states like Texas, where medication abortion is banned. While Attorney General Ken Paxton has attempted to penalize abortionists accused of shipping pills into the state, New York has so far refused to cooperate due to shield laws put in place for abortionists. 

The Friday filing was condemned by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser, who has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s handling of medication abortion. 

“The pro-life movement has very simple demands,” she said. “There should be no place on the market for drugs meant to poison and kill innocent human beings – but at the very least, this administration can and should take them out of the mail. This is no more or less than the policy of the first Trump administration.”

The Justice Department spokesman told The Daily Wire the department remains “committed to advancing President Trump’s pro-life agenda, including through dismissing criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits against peaceful pro-life advocates targeted by the previous administration, and using the FACE Act to protect pro-life pregnancy centers.”