Trump’s DOJ asks court to toss lawsuit against abortion pill

The Department of Justice on Monday asked the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas to throw out a case brought by three Republican-led states to restrict access to the abortion drug mifepristone. President Donald Trump’s administration argued Missouri, Idaho, and Kansas lacked standing to bring the case in Texas. Federal lawyers said the states should pursue their lawsuit in a district more relevant to their claims. The states had challenged the Food and Drug Administration’s 2016 approval for mifepristone to be used up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. But DOJ attorney Daniel Schwei argued that the states’ challenge fell outside a six-year statute of limitations. The Biden administration last year also sought to throw out the case. More than 60% of abortions in the United States are completed using mifepristone and misoprostol.

What is the history of the case? The attorneys general of Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho in October filed to continue a lawsuit first brought in 2022 by a group of doctors and medical associations. The U.S. Supreme Court in June last year unanimously ruled the original medical coalition did not have standing to sue the FDA. A federal court in July barred seven states from intervening in the case but Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas in January ruled that Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho could continue their lawsuit. Kacsmaryk in 2023 originally paused the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and its move to allow the drug to be prescribed and delivered through the mail without medical supervision.

In their lawsuit, the states argued that the FDA risked women’s health by allowing them to access mifepristone without a doctor’s guidance. They also contended the agency’s actions violate state abortion laws by enabling women to access the pill from other states. In Missouri, babies are only protected after 24 weeks of pregnancy after voters last November approved an amendment to enshrine abortion access into the state’s constitution. The Kansas state constitution also allows abortion up to 21 weeks of pregnancy, while Idaho protects all preborn babies throughout pregnancy except in very limited circumstances.

Dig deeper: Listen to Katie McCoy, Nick Eicher, and Mary Reichard’s report in The World and Everything in It about a new report that raised serious questions about the safety of chemical abortions.