WASHINGTON — A coalition of anti-abortion organizations is urging the Trump White House to intervene and prevent the Food and Drug Administration from continuing to permit abortion pills to be sent by mail, arguing that the Justice Department could accomplish that step simply by settling an ongoing lawsuit.
Louisiana filed the challenge last year against a Biden-era policy that allows mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used in medication abortions, to be distributed through the postal system.
The lawsuit, Louisiana v. FDA, is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans.
In 2021, the Biden administration’s FDA eliminated a rule requiring patients to obtain the abortion pill during an in-person visit with a medical provider, and the agency made that change permanent in 2023.
So far, the Trump FDA has left the policy in place, although officials have launched a safety review whose preliminary findings could be released as soon as next month.
Louisiana contends that the FDA’s decision to end the in-person dispensing requirement has enabled abortion providers and advocacy groups to sidestep the state’s stringent abortion limits.
Last month, the Supreme Court halted a Fifth Circuit order that had temporarily reinstated the requirement that mifepristone be dispensed in person.
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Then last week, the Justice Department submitted a motion backing the continued availability of the mail-delivery rule while the litigation proceeds.
“Agreeing to a court-ordered consent decree would end the Biden Administration’s unlawful mail-order abortion drug policy and restore in-person dispensing while the FDA completes a prompt, rigorous safety review,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and 83 other anti-abortion organizations wrote in a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche obtained by The Post.
“Every month DOJ delays, abusers retain a dangerous tool for coercion, state laws are undermined, unborn children are killed, and women face preventable risks,” the letter went on. “We respectfully urge you to settle Louisiana v. FDA, end DOJ’s defense of the mail-order abortion drug regime.”
Pro-life groups have long attacked the loosening of requirements to access mifepristone, which restricts certain hormones from the uterus needed to support a pregnancy. Typically, it is taken with misoprostol, which empties the uterus, to carry out a medical abortion.
Mifepristone can also be used to manage miscarriages and treat Cushing’s syndrome.
Roughly two-thirds of abortions across the country are chemically induced, per the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute.
Former FDA Commissioner Martin Makary had faced accusations by pro-life activists and Republican lawmakers that he was dragging his feet on the mifepristone safety review before stepping down in May.
Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, abortion groups have promoted mail-order mifepristone to help women circumvent red-state laws banning or significantly cracking down on the procedure.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
