On Monday, the Trump administration urged a federal district court to drop a lawsuit that contested the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to make the popular abortion drug mifepristone more widely available.
Missouri, Idaho, and Kansas are the three states pursuing the action, and Justice Department attorneys said in a petition with the U.S. district court in Amarillo, Texas, that they shouldn’t be allowed to do so there.
In the highly publicised challenge against mifepristone, a medication used to end an unplanned pregnancy, which has been taking place before U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk since last year, the Biden administration submitted the first request, which the government is now following up on.
“At bottom, the states cannot keep alive a lawsuit in which the original plaintiffs were held to lack standing, those plaintiffs have now voluntarily dismissed their claims, and the states’ own claims have no connection to this district,” according to Trump administration lawyers. “The states are free to pursue their claims in a district where venue is proper, but the states’ claims before this court must be dismissed or transferred pursuant to the venue statute’s mandatory command.”
In November 2022, a group of doctors and medical associations opposed to abortion rights launched the first lawsuit over mifepristone.
The alliance aimed to reverse a number of FDA modifications that loosened the guidelines for the medication’s usage. Last year, however, the Supreme Court dismissed that case and unanimously decided that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing, or the ability to sue.
However, the solicitors general for Kansas, Missouri, and Idaho, who had stepped in earlier in the case, wanted to keep it going. They claimed that the FDA’s modifications, which started in 2016, were illegal.
These initiatives included extending the number of medical professionals who can prescribe mifepristone, allowing the prescription to be dispensed via mail, and permitting the pill to be taken up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy instead of just seven weeks.
Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by President Trump during his first term, received a filing from the Justice Department stating that the states’ claims “have no connection” to the Northern District of Texas, where the case was filed, and that even if they were to file their own lawsuit there, it would not be able to proceed because it is not the appropriate venue.
“Regardless of the merits of the states’ claims, the states cannot proceed in this court,” administration lawyers stated. “The states’ amended complaint should be dismissed or transferred for lack of venue.”
Additionally, according to the Justice Department, the states waited too long to contest the FDA’s 2016 measures, which are subject to a six-year statute of limitations, therefore lack the legal capacity to file a lawsuit.
Since approving mifepristone for the first time in 2000, the FDA has made a number of modifications that have increased the drug’s accessibility.
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According to a report from the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research group, medication abortions accounted for over half of all abortions performed in the US healthcare system in 2023.
According to the group, mifepristone is restricted in 28 states, four of which forbid sending abortion medicines to patients via mail.
The Trump administration’s filing marks the first time it has taken a stance on the mifepristone issue. Conservatives pushed Mr. Trump’s administration to reverse the FDA’s previous actions that made mifepristone more accessible after he was elected to a second term in office.
During his confirmation hearing earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said senators that Mr. Trump had requested that he research the safety of mifepristone.
Although the president has not yet decided how to regulate the abortion pill, Kennedy, whose agency is in charge of the FDA, stated that he will carry out the president’s directives.
In June 2024, the president declared his “strong views” on mifepristone and promised to develop a policy position on drug access; however, he never followed through on his promise.
