Federal Judge Pauses Louisiana’s Lawsuit Over Abortion Drug

Regulators need to complete a review of the drug, the judge said.

Mifepristone tablets in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Ames, Iowa, on July 18, 2024. Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo

A federal judge has paused litigation that Louisiana brought over an abortion drug called mifepristone while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviews the drug’s safety.

Judge David Joseph of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana said in an April 7 order that he is siding with the government and putting the case on hold.

“The equities and the public interest weigh heavily in favor of FDA completing the job that the law requires it to do,” Joseph said in a 37-page ruling.

“Put differently, at this juncture, it is the completion of FDA’s promised good faith, evidence-based, and expeditious review of the mifepristone [review], not ‘government by lawsuit,’ that this Court finds to be in the public interest.”

The case involves the FDA’s removal, during the Biden administration, of a requirement that mifepristone be dispensed only in person. That move allowed people to order the drug by mail.

Louisiana in 2024 banned mifepristone, but doctors in other states have been prescribing it to Louisiana patients and sending it to them, Louisiana officials said in the state’s lawsuit against the FDA. About 1,000 mifepristone-induced abortions are happening each month in the state, officials estimate.

The removal of the in-person dispensing requirement was illegal because it was done without proper consideration of safety risks, as acknowledged by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, Louisiana officials said.

Federal lawyers requested that the case be stayed because the FDA is reviewing the safety of mifepristone, including conducting its own study on the drug. They said in a brief in January that Louisiana’s bid for an injunction “may prove as unnecessary as it is disruptive, if FDA ultimately decides that the in-person dispensing requirement must be restored.”

Joseph agreed, concluding that courts must defer to entities such as the FDA, which have the expertise to assess public health.

“FDA’s review should be conducted and completed free from judicial interference,” he wrote.

The judge did say that there is evidence that the in-person dispensing requirement removal was carried out without adequate consideration and at least in part to circumvent state laws that were enacted to regulate abortion in the wake of the 2022 Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade and enabled states to restrict or allow abortion. He also determined that Louisiana faces irreparable injury absent an injunction.

In light of those aspects, Joseph said that he was not giving the FDA an indefinite amount of time to complete the review. He ordered the FDA to provide him with the status of the review within six months and to alert him when it has finished.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement to news outlets that the state would ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to vacate the 2023 removal of the in-person dispensing requirement, pending the outcome of the case.