US abortion opponents are growing frustrated with the lack of action by President Donald Trump’s administration to stop the flow of abortion pills prescribed online, which they see as weakening state abortion restrictions.
A court decision this week in a lawsuit brought by Louisiana’s attorney general against Trump’s FDA highlights growing tensions. The judge said the state currently has a strong case for refusing to ban telehealth prescriptions for the mifepristone pill.
Anti-abortion groups are pressuring the FDA to move forward quickly with a review that they hope will lead to a ban on the abortion pill mifepristone, including preventing its prescription through telehealth platforms. The administration says that the work takes time.
The groups have mostly focused on the health agency, not the Republican president, whose three U.S. Supreme Court appointments played a key role in the 2022 decision that was overturned. roe vs wade And the first to allow state restrictions. But the administration’s request to delay a decision until reviews of the Louisiana lawsuit and similar cases are complete has angered some activists.
“The stall tactics are beyond disappointing,” Christy Hamrick, spokeswoman for Students for Life of America, said in an interview. Hamrick said the administration could also change its interpretation to prevent the pills from being mailed. 19th century law And implementing it.
A judge opened the door to put pressure on the administration
U.S. District Judge David Joseph, nominated by Trump for the bench, issued a mixed ruling Tuesday in a case brought by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and a woman who says her boyfriend forced her to take mifepristone to terminate her pregnancy.
Their overall aim is to roll back FDA regulations that have made the pills more accessible. Murrill, like officials in other states who have filed similar lawsuits, argue that the availability of the pills through online providers falls outside the ban in the 13 states that prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions.
Surveys of abortion providers have suggested that its availability via telehealth is one reason why the number of abortions in the US has not declined. Cry. While state abortion restrictions include bans on abortions using the pills, some Democratic-controlled states have adopted laws that seek to protect medical providers who prescribe them over telehealth and ship the pills to states with bans. Those so-called shield laws are being tested through civil and criminal cases.
In the Louisiana case, Joseph refused to grant Murrill’s request to put a stop to telehealth prescriptions for pills while the case was in the courts. But he said he may eventually do so and that the plaintiffs in the case are likely to succeed based on their arguments because the state has demonstrated it has suffered “irreparable harm.”
He also ordered the FDA to report within 6 months on the status of the drug’s review.
On Wednesday, Murrill filed a notice that she is taking the case to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in hopes of faster action.
politics is not simple
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, an influential conservative voice who is also a former Louisiana legislator, praised Murrill’s move.
He said people he meets are often surprised to learn that the number of abortions has not declined since the 2022 Supreme Court decision.
“It’s a surprise,” he said. “We’re already seeing a difference in enthusiasm between the parties. Republicans don’t need a lack of enthusiasm in their base.”
They hope the administration will ban abortion pills rather than risk losing support from conservative, anti-abortion voters in the November midterm elections.
Other groups are more cautious.
Madison LaClair, director of federal government affairs at National Right to Life, said her group trusts the administration to review mifepristone. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, avoided harsh words for the president: “The Trump-Vance administration has an important opportunity to prioritize women’s safety,” she said in a statement.
Still, recent election results show that voters seeking to keep abortion available have political momentum. since Roe deer was overturned, putting abortion on the direct ballot in 17 states. Voters favored the abortion-rights side on 14 of those questions.
“There seems to be a consensus across the country that people don’t want to ban abortion,” said Rachel Rebouche, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law who studies abortion.
FDA says it’s working on it
In a statement on Wednesday in response to questions from associated PressThe FDA said it is reviewing the safety of mifepristone, including “robust and timely collection of data, assessment of data integrity, and implementation of analysis, validation, and peer-review.”
After that, the agency said, it will decide whether to change the rules for how the drug can be prescribed.
It said it could take academics a year or more to complete such a study but the agency is trying to move faster than that. The spokesperson did not answer the question of when the work started.
Mifepristone has been a political priority for anti-abortion activists and their allies in Congress since Trump returned to office last year. At his January 2025 confirmation hearing, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was repeatedly asked about the drug by Republican lawmakers and said that the President had requested a safety review.
Frustration over signs that the FDA is not prioritizing abortion curbs flared up last fall when the FDA approved an additional generic version of mifepristone.
This medication is often used with another medication, misoprostol, for abortion.
Mifepristone was approved in 2000 as a safe and effective way to terminate early pregnancies.
Due to rare cases of excessive bleeding, the FDA initially imposed strict limits on who could prescribe and dispense the pill – only specially certified physicians and only after an in-person appointment where the person would receive the pill.
Both of those requirements were removed during the COVID years. At the time, FDA officials said that after monitoring the use of mifepristone for more than 20 years and reviewing dozens of studies involving thousands of women, it was clear that women could safely use the pill without direct supervision.
