Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill on Wednesday led her state in becoming the latest to challenge the government’s decision to reverse a policy requiring the country’s most popular abortion pill to be prescribed in person.
Murrill filed a motion in the Western District Court of Louisiana, requesting a stay of the Biden-era Food and Drug Administration policy change permitting mifepristone to be dispensed via telehealth appointments and mail distribution through certified prescribers or pharmacies.
Similar to recent requests in red states such as Florida and Texas, Murrill wants the judge to require the FDA to reinstate its in-person requirement for mifepristone dispensation through appointments at a clinic, medical office, or hospital while the case is being resolved in court.
National groups critical of abortions praised Louisiana for taking the step this week, as they questioned the Trump administration’s FDA for not taking a tougher stance against widespread abortion drugs.
“Louisiana and other states are demanding action to stop dangerous mail-order abortion drugs as the administration is MIA,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser wrote in a statement slamming FDA commissioner Marty Makary for not yet carrying out a promised study probing the drug’s safety.
“Undermining strong pro-life laws in 21 states, abortion drugs now cause more deaths a year in the United States than opioids and all other drugs combined – fueled by Biden-era rules allowing them to be sent by mail without ever seeing a doctor in person. Not only unborn children, but mothers, too, are at risk. The horrifying case of an Ohio woman allegedly force-fed abortion drugs against her will is one of at least a dozen poisonings and deaths we know of while the Biden rules have been in force,” she continued in a statement to WVLA Baton Rouge.
Civil rights groups and Planned Parenthood swiftly denounced the Louisiana Republican for seeking changes to mifepristone policy.
“For 25 years, mifepristone has advanced access to reproductive health care, allowing patients to get the safe, effective care they deserve. Despite rigorous testing, clinical trials, and an unparalleled safety record, anti-abortion politicians continue to attack access to mifepristone because they want to ban all abortion, everywhere,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO, Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “That’s what this direct attack on telemedicine is really about: controlling people’s bodies and lives.”
Earlier this month, abortion-rights groups similarly raised the alarm when Florida and Texas filed a lawsuit targeting mifepristone due to concerns about the approval process determining the drug’s safety in 2000. The lawsuit also challenges a series of subsequent decisions over the years that loosened restrictions on the pill, including allowing non-physicians to dispense the drug.
ANTI-ABORTION GROUPS FACE MAJOR TEST OVER OBAMACARE SUBSIDY LEGISLATION
“The United States Food and Drug Administration is responsible for ‘protect[ing] the public health by ensuring that … drugs are safe and effective. Yet the FDA’s approval and deregulation of abortion drugs have placed women and girls in harm’s way,” read the 120-page lawsuit, which was filed in the Lone Star state by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.
“The FDA’s regulation of mifepristone was political from the start,” the lawsuit added, pushing for the removal of the drug from the market.