Pro-life advocates blast Trump team for pausing abortion pill lawsuit

Pro-life advocates slammed the Trump administration this week for stalling a federal lawsuit that seeks to keep mail-order abortion pills out of Louisiana.

In a Tuesday filing, the Department of Justice asked the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to pause the state’s lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration as the agency reviews the side effects of mifepristone, a key abortion drug.

The administration also argues in a 26-page filing that Louisiana and plaintiff Rosalie Markezich lack legal standing to demand the reinstatement of in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone. She accuses her boyfriend in the complaint of coercing her to take pills mailed from California after the Biden administration allowed telehealth prescriptions in 2023.

“Neither Louisiana nor Ms. Markezich satisfies this test,” government attorneys Brett Shumate, James Harlow and Noah T. Katzen wrote in the memorandum, referring to the legal need to demonstrate harm.

The memo adds to a growing rift between the White House and conservatives over the pills, which have driven a nationwide surge in abortions since the Supreme Court allowed state-level restrictions in 2022.

Pro-lifers are urging the FDA to use its review to rescind the Biden administration policy, which lets patients in abortion-restricting areas order mifepristone after virtual appointments with doctors in other states.

Ms. Markezich insists that her boyfriend’s actions caused her physical and emotional pain from losing her unborn child. She and the state filed the lawsuit on Oct. 6.

Responding in this week’s court filing, the Trump administration shifted from providing no timeline for the FDA review to announcing that it will take “a year or more to conduct.”

At the same time, the memo accuses the Biden team of loosening medical safeguards without thoroughly reviewing possible harms from do-it-yourself abortions.

“They agree that Biden’s scheme is unlawful, but they want to spend another year or more conducting a study,” Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal advocacy group representing Ms. Markezich in court, said Wednesday in a post on X.com.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” the group added.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, thanked Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill in another X post for defending the state’s “right to protect the unborn and their mothers.”

Added Mr. Perkins: “Why is a Republican administration undermining that right?”

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which has allocated $80 million to support pro-life Republicans in November’s elections, called this week’s court filing “completely unacceptable.”

“It slams the door on women like Rosalie Markezich and their babies, who are suffering very real harm,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president.

In her statement, Ms. Dannenfelser dubbed the new FDA review timeline an act of “political fear.”

Reached Thursday for comment, some abortion researchers pointed to GOP electoral losses after the high court’s June 2022 ruling as a factor driving the White House to avoid the issue.

“President Trump clearly wants Republicans to maintain their House and Senate majorities in 2026,” said Michael New, a professor of social research at D.C.’s Catholic University of America. “He might also be concerned that if Democrats obtain control of Congress, he might be impeached again.”

White House strategy?

According to legal scholars, the Justice Department memo makes it unlikely that anything short of Supreme Court intervention will restrict abortion pills from crossing state lines before the midterms.

“President Trump has been pretty consistent on this point,” said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law scholar at the South Texas College of Law in Houston. “He does not favor blocking the shipment of abortion pills.”

Mary Ziegler, a leading historian of the legal abortion debate, said the president “may just be running out the clock” by delaying the FDA review.

“Not taking a position lets him be everything to everyone,” said Ms. Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. “Independents can say nothing’s going to happen, and pro-lifers can say it will happen after the midterms.”

In an emailed statement, the White House on Thursday touted Mr. Trump’s efforts to restrict federal funding of abortion and insisted that “there is no distance between the Trump administration and the pro-life movement.”

“The FDA is responding to widespread concerns about mifepristone with a Gold Standard Science-based safety review,” said Kush Desai, a White House spokesman. “And the Administration is simply asking the courts not to short-circuit this exhaustive process.”

‘Both ways’

The number of abortions reported nationwide has grown steadily since the Supreme Court returned jurisdiction of the procedure to the states.

Multiple studies have found a surge in mail-order pills driving the trend, even as reported abortions decline in states that have banned them.

Medication abortions, also known as chemical abortions, commonly involve a two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol.

In October, 51 senators signed a letter asking the Trump administration to restore in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone. One month later, 175 House Republicans penned a similar letter.

According to law experts, the Trump team’s intervention in the Louisiana case makes it harder for conservatives to achieve this goal.

Jessie Hill, a reproductive rights legal scholar at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University, said the Trump administration “has been very careful” in responding to pressure from its political base.

“The administration’s lawyers are trying to have it both ways a bit,” Ms. Hill said in an email. “They are trying to sound supportive and respectful of Louisiana’s pro-life goals, while also actively defending the FDA in this case.”