Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill filed a lawsuit last week calling on the federal government to drop rules that allow the distribution of abortion drugs without an in-person doctor visit. It is her latest attempt to impose restrictions on overseas shipments of mifepristone, a drug that used to terminate pregnancies but also has other life-saving and gynecological uses.
Murrill filed suit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in a federal court in Louisiana on Monday. It calls on the agency to roll back regulatory actions it took in 2023 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which would have allowed doctors to prescribe mifepristone through remote patient visits or — as the lawsuit alleges — without any interaction with a medical professional.
“As a result, hundreds of unlawful abortions occur every month in Louisiana,” the lawsuit said
A similar case to stop the mail-order sale of mifepristone was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court last year. The judges ruled unanimously that the physicians and medical groups that filed the lawsuit had no legal standing as plaintiffs, and that they had not considered the merits of the case.
Rosalie Markezich, a Louisiana woman who said her boyfriend forced her to take mifepristone given to him by a California doctor in October 2023, joins Louisiana Attorney General Murrill as a plaintiff in the new case.
Murrill has issued an arrest warrant for the doctor, Dr. Remy Coeytaux. She is the second healthcare provider that the Louisiana attorney general has sought to take into custody and has been charged.
Louisiana’s attorney general also wants a New York physician, Dr. Margaret Carpenter, prosecuting, who she alleges shipped abortion drugs to a Baton Rouge-area woman for her pregnant minor daughter. The doctor and the girl’s mother were charged in January for allegedly violating a 2022 Louisiana law that makes it a crime to knowingly induce an abortion using drugs.
States where abortion remains legal have stymied prosecutors with laws that protect medical providers from prosecution in states where abortion is banned. Louisiana Attorney General Murrill and fourteen other Republican attorneys general have urged Congress to do so scrap such ‘shield laws’.
Murrill also supported a first-of-its-kind state law passed last year that treats mifepristone and misoprostol, another reproductive care drug, as Schedule IV controlled substances. The designation requires physicians and medical institutions to follow much stricter guidelines for storage and dispensing.
Other uses for the drugs include treating ulcers, severe postpartum hemorrhage and aiding with IUD insertions and diagnostic hysteroscopies.
Doctors have said the new law has caused problems for their patients obtaining the medicines from pharmacies for routine gynecological care.
In defense of Louisiana’s Schedule IV law, Murrill characterized these firsthand reports from healthcare providers and patients as attempts by the news media, political organizations and opposition candidates “to sow confusion and doubt” to “advance their own financial and/or political agendas.”
This story was originally reported by Greg LaRose for Louisiana reliever. The Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. If you have any questions, please contact editor Greg LaRose: [email protected].
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