WASHINGTON — Dozens of pro-life groups are pleading with the Trump White House to stop the Food and Drug Administration from allowing mail delivery of abortion pills, claiming the Justice Department can do so by merely settling a lawsuit.
Last year, Louisiana challenged a Biden-era policy allowing mifepristone, part of a two-drug regimen to cause an abortion, to be delivered via the postal system. That case, Louisiana v. FDA, is playing out before the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 2021, the Biden FDA scrapped a requirement that patients visit a doctor in-person to get the abortion pill, formalizing that rule in 2023.
The Trump FDA has so far kept that policy intact, though the agency has begun conducting a safety review, the interim results of which could be released as early as next month.
Louisiana argued that the FDA’s move to remove the in-person dispensing requirement has allowed abortion groups to undermine the state’s strict abortion restrictions.
Last month, the Supreme Court blocked an order from the Fifth Circuit that had briefly required in-person dispensing of mifepristone.
Just last week, the DOJ filed a motion supporting keeping the mail-in rule in place while the case plays out.
“Agreeing to a court-ordered consent decree would end the Biden Administration’s unlawful mail-order abortion drug policy and restore in-person dispensing while the FDA completes a prompt, rigorous safety review,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and 83 other anti-abortion organizations wrote in a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche obtained by The Post.
“Every month DOJ delays, abusers retain a dangerous tool for coercion, state laws are undermined, unborn children are killed, and women face preventable risks,” the letter went on. “We respectfully urge you to settle Louisiana v. FDA, end DOJ’s defense of the mail-order abortion drug regime.”
Pro-life groups have long attacked the loosening of requirements to access mifepristone, which restricts certain hormones from the uterus needed to support a pregnancy. Typically, it is taken with misoprostol, which empties the uterus, to carry out a medical abortion.
Mifepristone can also be used to manage miscarriages and treat Cushing’s syndrome.
Roughly two-thirds of abortions across the country are chemically induced, per the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute.
Former FDA Commissioner Martin Makary had faced accusations by pro-life activists and Republican lawmakers that he was dragging his feet on the mifepristone safety review before stepping down in May.
Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, abortion groups have promoted mail-order mifepristone to help women circumvent red state laws banning or significantly cracking down on the procedure.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.