Abortion opponents miffed at Trump’s attempts to dismiss another abortion pill case

For the second time this year, the Trump administration is trying to at least delay another legal attempt to curb access to medication abortion.

The U.S. Department of Justice late Friday afternoon asked a federal court in Missouri to either pause or dismiss a lawsuit over the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision last year to approve a new generic brand of mifepristone. The case, filed by attorneys general in Missouri, Idaho and Kansas, calls into question other FDA regulations, including those allowing abortion medication to be prescribed through telehealth.  

The DOJ filed a similar request in late January in a separate abortion pill lawsuit, Louisiana v. FDA, which is primarily challenging the agency’s removal of its in-person dispensing requirement. A win for plaintiffs, whose request for a preliminary injunction awaits a decision, could significantly restrict access to abortion medication throughout the country.

In both cases, the DOJ asked the courts to halt the cases while the FDA re-evaluates the abortion pill mifepristone, determined in many studies over decades to be safe and effective. Advocates suspect the administration has been slow-walking the FDA review until after the midterm elections.

“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,” DOJ attorneys argue in their Missouri filing, noting there are multiple related lawsuits. “Parallel proceedings would waste judicial resources because FDA’s own review may eliminate any need for the Court’s.” 

If not paused, the DOJ asked the court to dismiss the Missouri case for other reasons, including an argument that plaintiffs lack standing.

Several anti-abortion leaders denounced the action on social media. The movement has become increasingly frustrated with the administration’s unwillingness to undo a Biden-era policy that allows abortion medication to be prescribed via telehealth. 

“The pro-life movement has very simple demands,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, in a news release following the court filing. “At the very least, this administration can and should take them (abortion drugs) out of the mail. This is no more or less than the policy of the first Trump administration.” 

The powerful anti-abortion lobbying group is trying to convince the Trump administration that ignoring the movement’s demands could hurt the GOP’s prospects in the midterm elections. “Trump-Vance world ignores this crisis at its own political peril,” Dannenfelser said, arguing some of the most engaged voters might sit out the midterms.

SBA Pro-Life America has previously threatened to redirect or withhold some of their pledged $80 million midterm elections investment based on congressional votes on abortion-related issues. Asked if they have specific terms for the administration before helping with campaigns, Dannenfelser reiterated her group’s demand in a written statement. 

“The Trump-Vance administration needs to do its job and reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement immediately,” she said. 

It has been almost a year since the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services agreed, after a pressure campaign, to study abortion pill safety, and the FDA is estimating it could take another year before the study is completed. 

Late last year, Bloomberg reported that, in private, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary told agency officials to delay the safety review until after the November elections. 

A spokesperson for HHS did not confirm this but directed States Newsroom to the FDA’s website.

“As of February 2026, the FDA continues to work on the collection of the robust and timely data that is necessary for a well-controlled study with adequate statistical power. The next steps of the mifepristone safety study will be data exploration, evaluation of data integrity, and implementation of the analyses, validation, and peer-review,” reads a government FAQ page on the medication. “In academia, studies like these, including the appropriate steps described above, often take approximately a year or more to conduct.” 

Hundreds of studies conducted before and since the FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 have found the abortion medication regimen that includes a second drug, misoprostol, to have a low risk of serious adverse events. But anti-abortion groups have argued otherwise with studies they helped produce in the last few years. 

A non-peer-reviewed paper funded by the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center shaped the government’s basis for this review. On Tuesday, the organization published a new paper, again suggesting high adverse events after taking medication abortion. 

‘I don’t think he’s going to do anything else’

After picking the three justices who helped overturn federal abortion protections, President Donald Trump has made no more bold commitments to the anti-abortion movement. Among advocates’ asks, the administration has blocked Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood for a year. The government also restored other federal grants it previously revoked.

Trump has not yet come through on their demand to undo Biden-era policies that made abortion medication easier to access. And some advocates argue the administration has helped expand that access, in part by approving a new generic brand of mifepristone and by asking federal courts to delay these legal cases looking to limit the abortion pill. 

Trump received blowback recently when he suggested the Republican Party should be “flexible” on the Hyde Amendment, an annually renewed policy that bans federal funding of abortion in most cases. 

So far, abortion opponents’ ire has often been directed at federal agencies, but leading national anti-abortion groups have openly criticized HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and called for Makary’s ouster over the delay.  

Students for Life of America has blamed the DOJ for its request to dismiss the Missouri case.

“Trump’s DOJ just moved to dismiss Missouri vs. FDA,” Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins posted on X on Friday, “Their excuse? We have to wait for the FDA to finish its safety review.”

She called on the DOJ to instead enforce the Comstock Act, a mostly dormant law related to the mailing of “obscene” material enacted in 1873. It’s a position also argued in the Missouri and Louisiana cases about medication abortion and one Trump rejected in 2024. 

But one anti-abortion movement leader who blames the president directly for inaction is Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood center director in Texas who founded And Then There Were None, which recruits former abortion health care workers, some who now advocate, in legislatures and courts, that abortion should be banned and treated in law like homicide.  

“He promised them one thing, and that was to overturn Roe,” Johnson said. “And he did that, and I don’t think he’s going to do anything else for the pro-life movement.”

She said she believes Vice President J.D. Vance is sincerely anti-abortion but “hamstrung by Trump.” It’s a sentiment shared by more in the movement. Vance was selected first choice for the GOP’s next presidential nominee in a straw poll at Students for Life of America’s National Pro-Life Summit in January.   

But Johnson said Vance should still be judged for the actions of the administration. 

“We also have to really consider what the Trump administration is allowing,” Johnson said. “What really have they done to curb abortion? Nothing. Abortion rates are up in the United States with a supposedly pro-life administration.”