Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is spearheading a complaint against federal health officials over a Biden-era order allowing key abortion drugs to be prescribed via telehealth. (Photo by Matthew Perschall/Louisiana Illuminator)
A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in a federal lawsuit led by Louisiana that seeks to further restrict access to mifepristone by asking courts to stop mailing abortion pills nationwide.
The Justice Department argued that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case and asked a judge to do so stop legal proceedings until the Food and Drug Administration completes its review of the drug.
Hundreds of studies have shown that the drug does unthreatening and effective to abortion early in pregnancy, but a document released last year by a conservative think tank forced Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reassessment from mifepristone.
The state of Louisiana and a woman who claimed her ex-boyfriend forced her to take abortion drugs sued the FDA in October and sought a preliminary injunction against a 2023 rule that allows abortion pills to be prescribed via telehealth or shipped to patients and for pharmacies to seek certification to dispense mifepristone.
Julie Kay, founder and CEO of the legal group Reproductive Futures, told States Newsroom that the lawsuits in Louisiana and elsewhere represent a “thinly veiled attempt” to block access to abortions through telehealth medications.
“We have seen that telemedicine abortion has become extremely popular in all 50 states and is especially important for women in under-resourced areas,” Kay said.
Missouri, Idaho, Kansas, Texas and Florida they are also suing the FDA over its mifepristone regulations and asking the courts to limit or completely overturn the drug’s approval.
According to the latest report from the Family Planning Society #WeCount, almost 30% of abortions performed in the first half of 2025 were performed via telehealth report.
The report found that through June 2025, doctors with state law protections were performing about 15,000 abortions per month, allowing them to remotely prescribe abortion drugs to people living in states where abortion is banned or restricted. Shield Laws protecting healthcare workers from out-of-state investigations have so far been pending in courtdespite the efforts of prosecutors in Texas AND Louisiana.
Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has vowed to defend anti-abortion laws in her state, which has banned rape and incest without exceptions since August 2022. She accused a Californian doctor in January, accusing him of mailing abortion pills to Rosalie Markezich, a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit.
Louisiana lawyers argue that the Biden administration’s decision to eliminate the personal dispensation requirement for mifepristone is an insult to states that ban abortion.
Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Erik Baptist characterized the lawsuit as an issue of intimate partner violence, alleging that the Markezis’ ex-boyfriend ordered abortion pills online from Dr. Rémy Coeytaux in California without any in-person interaction.
“So this lawsuit would protect women across the country, especially in Louisiana, from a mail-order abortion program that enables and emboldens people in coercive situations, like men and perpetrators, who can now obtain these medications remotely,” Baptist said.
Reproductive coercion — when an abusive partner controls a person’s bodily autonomy — has been raised in recent legal challenges over access to abortion pills brought by other GOP attorneys general as part of attempts to restrict the employ of mifepristone, according to Rachel Rebouché, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in reproductive rights.
“There’s really no evidence that people are coerced or forced to take the pills. It’s obviously terrible if anyone felt forced, but I’m not sure it changes the argument about what FDA should do as the agency involved in reviewing the evidence,” Rebouché said.
For their part, Justice Department lawyers say the order interferes with the FDA’s review and risk assessment and mitigation strategies, triggering a flurry of other lawsuits.
“Plaintiffs now threaten to disrupt the agency’s orderly review and investigation of the safety risks associated with mifepristone by asking the Court to immediately suspend the 2023 REMS modification approved three years ago,” they said in a statement note filed January 27 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
Kay said she viewed the Trump administration’s request to pause the case as a legal delay tactic that is more about politics than science because most Americans believe abortion should be available. AND Pew Research Center poll June 2025 found that 63% of respondents said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
“The federal administration is fully aware of this popularity and I think they are saying they want to wait until after the semesters,” Kay said.
Baptist said the FDA may conduct an assessment until the in-person attendance requirement is reinstated.
The manufacturers of Mifepristone intervened in the case earlier this month, Highlighter from Louisiana reported. But unlike the federal government, GenBioPro and Danco, which created generic and brand-name versions of the drug, asked the court to dismiss Louisiana’s lawsuit entirely.
In note in a filing on Tuesday, February 17, plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that the 2023 regulatory change “was intended to authorize a direct attack” on anti-abortion states.
The filing also rejected arguments that Louisiana and Markezich lack standing to sue, as did a group of anti-abortion doctors in a lawsuit against the FDA over previous mifepristone regulations, according to a 2024 study. US Supreme Court ruling. The judges rejected the Alliance for Hippocrates Medicine’s requests but did not rule on the merits of the case.
Baptist also said that judicial panels of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana – the conservative-leaning court where this lawsuit could be brought – twice ruled that it was “arbitrary and capricious” for the FDA to allow the employ of abortion drugs without an in-person doctor visit.
In the Louisiana corner are the main anti-abortion players: Students for American Life, 60 Republican members of Congress, 21 GOP attorneys general and Center for Ethics and Public Policy made statements in support of the state.
Rebouché, the University of Texas professor, said there would be a conflict between federal courts if a district court judge rules in Louisiana’s favor. There are nearly a dozen lawsuits pending over abortion pills aimed at restricting and deregulating mifepristone, United Newsroom reported.
Anna Bernstein, the Guttmacher Institute’s chief federal policy adviser, said in a statement Friday that reinstating the in-person consent requirement for mifepristone would make access to abortion more tough.
“If access to telehealth and mifepristone by mail is restricted, more patients will be forced to rely on walk-in clinics for care, straining provider capacity and increasing wait times in an already chaotic landscape,” she said. “Given that travel is out of reach for many people, the result would likely be increased delays and more people unable to obtain the abortion care they need and deserve.”
Kelcie Moseley-Morris contributed to this report.
This story was originally produced by News from the USwhich is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes the Ohio Capital Journal and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
