A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 24 in a federal lawsuit led by Louisiana that seeks to further restrict access to mifepristone by asking the courts to prevent abortion pills from being shipped across the country.
The Justice Department has argued that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the case and has asked the judge to do so stop legal proceedings until the Food and Drug Administration completes a review of the medication.
Hundreds of studies have concluded that the drug is safe and effective for abortions early in pregnancy, but an article published last year by a conservative think tank forced Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reevaluation of mifepristone.
The state of Louisiana and a woman who said her ex-boyfriend forced her to use abortion drugs sued the FDA in October, seeking a preliminary injunction against a 2023 rule that allows abortion pills to be prescribed via telehealth or mailed to patients, and for pharmacies to apply for certification to dispense mifepristone.
Julie Kay, the founder and CEO of the legal advocacy group Reproductive Futures, told States Newsroom that the lawsuits in Louisiana and elsewhere are “thinly veiled attempts” to block access to abortion with telehealth medications.
“We have seen telemedicine abortion become incredibly popular in all 50 states and is especially critical for women in under-resourced areas,” Kay said.
Missouri, Idaho, Kansas, Texas and Florida are also suing the FDA over mifepristone regulations and asking the courts to restrict or revoke the drug’s approval altogether.
According to the Society of Family Planning’s latest #WeCount, nearly 30 percent of abortions in the first half of 2025 were done via telehealth. report.
In June 2025, about 15,000 abortions per month were performed by doctors protected by state laws that allowed them to remotely prescribe abortion drugs to people living in states where abortion is banned or restricted, the report found. Protect laws protect health care professionals from out-of-state investigations have held out in court so fardespite efforts by prosecutors inside Texas And Louisiana.
Louisiana’s Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill vowed to defend anti-abortion laws in her state, which has had a ban since August 2022 with no exceptions for rape or incest. She sued a California doctor in January accused him of sending abortion pills to Rosalie Markezich, a plaintiff in the lawsuit in federal courts.
Louisiana attorneys argue the Biden administration’s decision to eliminate the personal dispensation requirement for mifepristone is an insult to states that ban abortion.
Erik Baptist, Senior Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, characterized the lawsuit as a matter of intimate partner violence, saying that Markezich’s ex-boyfriend had ordered abortion pills online from Dr. Rémy Coeytaux in California, without any personal interaction.
“So what this lawsuit would do is protect women across the country, particularly in Louisiana, from this mail-order abortion program that enables and encourages people in coercive situations, such as men and abusers who can now obtain these medications remotely,” Baptist said.
Reproductive coercion— when an abusive partner controls a person’s bodily autonomy — has been raised in recent legal challenges to access to abortion pills by other GOP attorneys general in efforts to restrict mifepristone, according to Rachel Rebouché, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in reproductive rights.
“There’s really no evidence that people are being coerced or coerced into taking pills. It’s obviously terrible if anyone feels coerced, but I’m not sure that changes the argument of what the FDA should do as an agency committed to reviewing evidence,” Rebouché said.
For their part, attorneys for the DOJ have said an injunction would disrupt the FDA’s review and risk assessment and mitigation strategies, setting off an avalanche of other lawsuits.
“Plaintiffs now threaten to short-circuit the agency’s orderly review and study of the safety risks of mifepristone by asking this court to grant an immediate stay of the 2023 REMS Amendment that was approved three years ago,” they wrote in a memo filed Jan. 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
Kay said she views the Trump administration’s motion to pause the case as a legal delaying tactic that is more about politics than science, because most Americans believe abortion should be accessible. A Pew Research Center Survey June 2025 found that 63 percent of respondents said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
“This federal government is very aware of that popularity, and I think they’re saying they want to wait until after the midterm elections,” Kay said.
Baptist said the FDA can conduct their review while the in-person requirement is reinstated.
Mifepristone manufacturers intervened in the case earlier this month, Louisiana reliever reported. But unlike the federal government, GenBioPro and Danco, the companies behind the generic and branded versions of the drug, asked the court to dismiss Louisiana’s lawsuit entirely.
In one memo Filed on Feb. 17, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that the 2023 rule change was “intended to authorize a direct attack” on anti-abortion states.
The filing also rejects arguments that Louisiana and Markezich lack standing, in the same way a group of anti-abortion doctors did in a lawsuit against the FDA over the previous regulation of mifepristone, according to a 2024 study. US Supreme Court ruling. The judges rejected the requests from the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, but did not rule on the merits of the case.
Baptist also said that judicial panels from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana — a conservative-leaning court where this lawsuit could next take place — have twice ruled that it was “arbitrary and capricious” for the FDA to allow abortion drugs without an in-person doctor visit.
In Louisiana’s corner are major anti-abortion players: Students for America’s Life, 60 Republican members of Congress, 21 GOP attorneys generaland the Center for Ethics and Public Policy briefs filed in support of the state.
Rebouché, a professor at the University of Texas, said conflicts would arise between the federal courts if the judge rules in Louisiana’s favor. There are nearly a dozen lawsuits over abortion pills that seek to restrict and deregulate mifepristone. States Newsroom reported.
Anna Bernstein, chief policy advisor at the Guttmacher Institute, said in a statement Friday that reinstating the personal dispensation requirement for mifepristone would hinder access to abortion.
“Restricting access to telehealth and mifepristone by mail would push more patients into inpatient care, straining provider capacity and increasing wait times in an already chaotic landscape,” she said. “Given that travel is out of reach for many people, the result would likely be more delays and more people unable to get the abortion care they need and deserve.”
Kelcie Moseley-Morris contributed to this report. This article is republished from News from the United Statespart of States Newsroom. Read Elisha Brown’s original story here.
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