FDA Claims Mail-Order Abortion Policies Are Not Preventing States From Protecting The Unborn

The Justice Department said Tuesday that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations allowing the abortion pill mifepristone to be shipped through the mail do not infringe on a state’s ability to protect the unborn.

The position was taken in a court filing asking a judge not to grant a request from Louisiana to block the current regulations that allow mifepristone to be sent through the mail. The filing said that the FDA was currently reviewing the safety standards for mifepristone, and a ruling blocking the current standard could be “disruptive.” 

“Louisiana suffers no sovereign injury because it remains free to make and enforce its pro-life policies after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org,” the Justice Department said. “Nor are Defendants standing in the way of Louisiana enforcing its abortion laws against out-of- state prescribers of mifepristone.”

Louisiana and a woman named Rosalie Markezich sued the FDA last November, seeking to have a judge suspend the FDA’s current Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy standards for mifepristone. Markezich says she was coerced into taking abortion pills illegally ordered and sent into Louisiana by her ex-boyfriend. 

A White House official told The Daily Wire that nothing in the filing should be construed as the White House “defending” former President Joe Biden’s administration’s abortion drug policies.

“We’ve been very clear we have issues with that as well,” the White House official noted, saying that the Trump administration has raised issues with mifepristone, which is why it was conducting a study into mifepristone. 

“Legally speaking, it’s a question of standing,” the official said. “All we are really saying with this filing is, let’s not short-circuit this process, and let the agency, that is doing what a lot of the pro-life groups want, let them do what they’ve been tasked to do, and let that process play out.” 

As The Daily Wire previously reported, leftist activists have been shipping abortion pills into states all across the country, even in red states like Louisiana, where medication abortions are technically illegal. This mailing of abortion pills, which was greenlit by the Biden administration as a COVID measure, has fueled an increase in abortions across the country after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. 

Shield laws passed in states like California and New York have been enacted, preventing Republican attorneys general from being able to prosecute the doctors sending abortion pills into their states. States like Louisiana say the FDA regulations give pro-abortion doctors the cover to ship the pills. 

Both FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have said that they are conducting a study on the abortion pill, but pro-life advocates and lawmakers have demanded quicker action. 

“Given this widespread debate over the safety of mifepristone, FDA has concluded that the best path forward is for the agency to reconsider the restrictions on mifepristone based on all the evidence before the agency,” the Justice Department said on Tuesday. “As noted above, that evidence will include FDA’s own study.”

The department also said that a ruling by a judge to block the current mifepristone regulations would “threaten to short circuit the agency’s orderly review and study of the safety risks of mifepristone by asking this Court for an immediate stay of the 2023 REMS Modification approved three years ago.”

The department asserted that neither Louisiana nor Markezich was facing any immediate harm from the current regulations. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending Markezich, disagreed. 

“Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the Biden-era abortion-by-mail scheme has allowed thousands of abortion drugs to flow into Louisiana each year. We’re calling on the FDA to put a stop to it,” ADF wrote on X. “Yesterday, they submitted their reply brief in our lawsuit, Louisiana v. FDA. With [Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill] we’re asking the Court to end illegal mail-order abortions now. They agree that Biden’s scheme is unlawful, but they want to spend another year or more conducting a study. Justice delayed is justice denied. Stand with Rosalie and the State of Louisiana.”

Murrill said that the filing shows that the FDA admits the current regulations are “flawed but claims that Louisiana can’t sue to stop the 1,000 dangerous abortions a month in Louisiana that the REMS allows. That is an affront to our sovereignty and the dignity of women and the unborn. FDA should stand with us for life, not with [Gavin Newsom] and [Kathy Hochul].”

The filing was also criticized by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which has called for Makary’s ousting over his handling of the abortion pill study. 

“Today’s denial of justice by the DOJ is completely unacceptable. It slams the door on women like Rosalie Markezich and their babies, who are suffering very real harm as the Trump-Vance administration refuses to reimplement basic guardrails on deadly mail-order abortion drugs,” said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Abortion drugs accessible by mail are killing more Americans than fentanyl, cocaine or heroin combined.”

The FDA told The Daily Wire that it does not comment on pending litigation as a matter of policy.