The Justice Department submitted a filing to block a lawsuit from Missouri and two other Republican-led states that challenged the FDA’s policy allowing the abortion drug mifepristone to be shipped through the mail.
“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 Justice Department wrote in its filing.
“Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho (Intervenor Plaintiffs) threaten to short-circuit the agency’s orderly review and study of the safety risks of mifepristone,” the filing argues. “They would have this Court set aside the FDA actions modifying the conditions of use (including the REMS) and approving generic equivalents as far back as 2016—without the benefit of FDA’s new review of the mifepristone REMS.”
The three states filed suit to reverse a COVID-era regulatory change that loosened restrictions on dispensing the drug. The DOJ’s filing argued that letting the case proceed would interfere with an ongoing federal safety review of mifepristone, and asked the court to either put the lawsuit on hold or dismiss it entirely.
The move drew sharp criticism from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser, one of the most prominent pro-life advocates in the country and a vocal critic of how the administration has handled medication abortion. “The pro-life movement has very simple demands,” Dannenfelser 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.”
FDA Administrator Marty Makary and Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said last year they had initiated a formal review of mifepristone’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy. That review has not been released.
The DOJ’s filing maintained that states can still enforce their own pro-life laws and that the federal government is not “standing in the way” of state plaintiffs enforcing bans on out-of-state prescribers.
