By Andrew Chung
May 7 (Reuters) – Louisiana urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to prevent abortion pills from being prescribed through telemedicine and distributed by mail, as the Republican-led state presses its case to overturn a 2023 federal rule that made access to the medication easier.
Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s office in a filing asked the justices to deny emergency requests by two manufacturers of the abortion pill to lift a lower court’s decision that narrowed access to it by blocking the regulation nationwide while the state’s legal challenge continues.
The regulation concerning the medication, called mifepristone, was issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration during Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency.
Murrill’s office said the regulation has allowed medication abortions to skyrocket despite the state’s near-total ban on abortion.
“Notwithstanding Louisiana’s policy and laws, hundreds of abortions are occurring every month in Louisiana. That is the predictable consequence of a drug war enabled by President Biden’s FDA,” the office said in the filing.
The rule is currently in effect following an interim order by the Supreme Court on Monday that temporarily paused the decision by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of Louisiana. That action was intended to give the justices time to decide on the requests by mifepristone makers Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro.
The case has thrust the contentious issue of abortion back in front of the justices as abortion opponents again try to scale back access to mifepristone, with the November U.S. congressional elections looming.
The Supreme Court in 2024 unanimously rejected an initial bid by anti-abortion groups and doctors to roll back FDA regulations that had eased access to mifepristone, ruling that these plaintiffs lacked the necessary legal standing to pursue the challenge.
The ongoing battles over abortion rights follow the court’s 2022 ruling that overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent that had legalized abortion nationwide. That ruling has prompted 13 states to enact near-total bans on the procedure, while several others have sharply restricted access.
Since that ruling, anti-abortion advocates have targeted mifepristone, claiming that it is unsafe for women to take and that the FDA should not have approved it or relaxed limits on its use.
The FDA has said mifepristone was approved based on scientific evidence and continues to be safe and effective for its intended purpose when used as directed. Reproductive health experts note that hundreds of clinical trials, studies and medical reviews have shown that mifepristone is safe and that complications are exceedingly rare.
They have said abortion opponents have misrepresented studies that actually show that complications and serious adverse events for women who have accessed the pill by telehealth and the mail are rare.
Mifepristone, given FDA regulatory approval in 2000, is taken with another drug called misoprostol to perform medication abortions, a method that now accounts for more than 60% of all abortions in the United States.
Louisiana sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2025 claiming that the FDA’s determination that data supported eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone – which it calls a longstanding safeguard – was illegal and undermined the state’s abortion ban.
Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro intervened in the litigation to defend the regulation. Republican President Donald Trump’s administration opposed Louisiana’s challenge, citing an ongoing review of safety regulations concerning mifepristone. The administration also argued that Louisiana does not have legal standing to pursue its case.
In April, U.S. Judge David Joseph in Lafayette, Louisiana, declined to block the regulation but agreed with the administration to put the case on hold pending the review. The 5th Circuit blocked the rule on May 1.
Abortion rights advocates call the Trump administration’s review politically motivated and unnecessary given decades of studies showing the safety of mifepristone. They said that the review could lead to tighter restrictions on the medication.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
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