Trump DOJ seeks stay for Louisiana suit to end mailing of abortion drugs

The Trump administration has asked a federal judge in Louisiana to pause before ruling on the state’s lawsuit seeking to end the Food and Drug Administration policy that allows doctors to prescribe abortion medication without an in-person visit.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed for a stay Tuesday in the lawsuit state Attorney General Liz Murrill filed against the Food and Drug Administration in October in Louisiana’s Western District federal court.

Murrill wants the agency to reverse regulatory action it took in 2023 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, when patient access to physicians was limited. Murrill’s broader intent is to restrict interstate shipments of mifepristone, a medication used to terminate pregnancies but that also has other life-saving and gynecological uses.

Under pressure from anti-abortion groups, FDA Administrator Marty Makary began a review of mifepristone’s safety in September through what the agency calls its Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS. Reproductive health advocates have said the review isn’t needed based on decades of the drug being used safely without a significant history of complications.

“Given this widespread debate over the safety of mifepristone, FDA has concluded that the best path forward is for the agency to reconsider the restrictions on mifepristone based on all the evidence before the agency,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote in the stay request for the Louisiana case.

His filing also said Louisiana doesn’t have standing to sue the Food and Drug Administration because it cannot supplant federal authority, among other reasons. If the court were to accept Louisiana’s arguments, it would likely lead states to challenge any federal action they claim could increase crime or place more burden on state authorities to enforce. 

“States could challenge the loosening of federal regulations relating to firearms, the environment, banking, or anything else, Shumate’s filing said.

In a social media post Tuesday, Murrill took issue with the stay request and referenced her attempts to prosecute doctors in California and New York who have been indicted in Louisiana for prescribing abortion medication and shipping it to the state. Governors in both states have rejected Murrill’s attempts to extradite the doctors in question, leaning on the shield laws in their respective states that protect medical providers.

Murrill has said the availability of abortion medication has led to more pregnancies being terminated in Louisiana than before the U.S. Supreme Court decided in June 2022 to reverse its landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, allowing states to ban abortion. 

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration admits that the REMS is flawed but claims that Louisiana can’t sue to stop the 1,000 dangerous abortions a month in Louisiana that the REMS allows. That is an affront to our sovereignty and the dignity of women and the unborn,” Murrill said. “FDA should stand with us for life, not with Gavin Newsom or Kathy Hochul.” 

Advocates for self-managed abortions back Murrill’s monthly abortion count claim, saying the study it’s based on is likely an undercount because patients and physicians are reluctant to report actual data in states where abortion is banned.

Murrill’s federal case is on behalf of Rosalie Markezich, a St. Tammany Parish woman who said her boyfriend coerced her into taking mifepristone he obtained in October 2023 from a California doctor. 

The attorney general issued an arrest warrant last year for the physician, Dr. Remy Coeytaux, before obtaining an indictment against him earlier this month. 

Murrill has also charged Dr. Margaret Carpenter, the New York doctor who she said shipped abortion drugs to a West Baton Rouge woman for her pregnant minor daughter. The physician and the girl’s mother were indicted a year ago for allegedly violating a 2022 state law that makes it a crime to knowingly cause an abortion through medication.