Pro-life coalition calls on acting AG to support states' abortion pill lawsuits

A coalition of pro-life groups are asking Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney General of the United States, to side with pro-life state attorneys general currently suing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over dangerous abortion pill policies.

Key Takeaways:

• Multiple lawsuits have been filed by individual states and pro-life attorneys general across the country against the FDA's abortion pill policies.

• The FDA's Risk Evaluation and Mitigation System (REMS) safety requirements for mifepristone (the abortion pill) have been progressively weakened since the Obama administration began doing so in 2016.

• The lawsuits seek to have previous safeguards reinstated.

The Details:

After the Trump administration's removal of Pam Bondi as Attorney General, Todd Blanche was appointed to the position of Acting Attorney General of the United States. A coalition of pro-life groups, including Live Action, has sent a letter to Blanche asking him to support the pro-life lawsuits instead of opposing them, as the lawsuits aim to restore earlier REMS for mifepristone:

We, the undersigned, representing millions of Americans across the nation, call on you to use your new position to reverse the DOJ’s harmful stance of siding with the abortion drug industry.

You have the opportunity instead to stand with pro-life Republican Attorneys General who are suing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to protect their citizens from the harms of abortion drugs and to stop FDA policies that undermine our state laws.

Under Bondi, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sided with the FDA, arguing that the states do not have standing to sue. As the letter explained:

[T]o date, this Department of Justice has downplayed the harms of mail-order abortion and called for each case to be paused or even dismissed entirely. Meanwhile, thousands of abortion drugs are being mailed all over the United States daily, even from overseas, with zero oversight.

Pro-life states cannot meaningfully enforce their laws when FDA is siding with mail-order abortionists and DOJ is siding with abortion drug manufacturers. Virtually every state has some law on the books that makes the current mail-order abortion regime unlawful, even basic laws like practicing medicine without a license. Yet abortionists protected by so-called “shield laws” ship drugs nationally with impunity, pointing to FDA for cover.

The letter concluded that, with the current status of mifepristone, state laws are being undermined, women are being hurt, and there is no accountability for the abortion industry.

The Context:

Last week, a U.S. District judge sided with the Trump administration, pausing Louisiana's lawsuit against the FDA. However, as Live Action News reported:

The ruling surprisingly affirmed that the State of Louisiana not only has standing to sue, but agreed that — in the words of Louisiana's Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga — states like Louisiana are "suffering irreputable sovereign harm everyday that this 2023 REMS... remains in effect."

The judge stated that Louisiana is likely to succeed in its lawsuit should the FDA fail to roll back the REMS, as "The Fifth Circuit has twice indicated... that FDA was likely arbitrary and capricious under the APA in removing mifepristone’s in-person dispensing requirement."

1st Trimester Abortion | The Abortion Pill | What Is Abortion?

The Backstory:

Mifepristone, better known as the abortion pill, was first approved by the FDA in 2000, and safety protocols were put in place (REMS) in 2011 after adverse events took place. But in 2016, the Obama administration began weakening those safety protocols, allowing the abortion pill to be dispensed for women through 10 weeks gestation instead of seven.

Additionally, the administration removed the requirement to report non-fatal adverse events (complications), meaning only deaths would then be reported. It also removed the requirement for the first of the abortion pill regimen to be taken in-person in front of a clinician, though the drug still had to be obtained via an in-person visit.

Those standards continued to be weakened under the Biden administration, which permanently eliminated any in-person dispensing requirements, allowing pills to be not only sent through the mail, but also distributed through retail pharmacies.

And though the abortion industry has continually insisted the abortion pill is safe — even safer than Tylenol, evidence has increasingly proven this to be false.

An analysis from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) found that nearly 11% of women (10.93%) experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or other serious or life-threatening adverse events after taking mifepristone, meaning one in 10 women experience a serious complication. This is 22 times higher than the “less than 0.5 percent” rate reported by the FDA.

In Ireland, another study found that 12% of women who underwent chemical abortions experienced complications severe enough to require a visit to the emergency room, with 16% suffering incomplete abortions. Still another study found that women were severely unprepared for how painful the chemical abortion process would be.

All the while, women have been told to lie to emergency room staff if they experienced complications, instead attributing the complications to natural miscarriage, which therefore makes it impossible to truly know how many women may have been injured.

The Bottom Line:

Women deserve better than the abortion pill, and it is long past time for the Trump administration to take action to protect the women and children of this nation.