Louisiana Sues FDA to Block Mailing of Abortion Drugs to Pro-Life States

By: S.A. McCarthy, originally published October 9, 2025, The Washington Stand

Republican states with pro-life laws on the books have been battling blue states over the issue of mail-order abortion drugs. Now, one red state is taking the fight to the federal courts.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) filed a lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), petitioning the agency to reinstate a prior rule requiring that the abortion drug mifepristone be dispensed in person. “There’s been this dramatic increase in people, groups, organizations, doctors, and other states mailing these pills to women in our state where that is illegal,” Murrill recounted on “Washington Watch” Wednesday night. “It’s just a problem that’s being perpetuated by the FDA’s continuing to allow these pills to not be subject to the protocols that they used to be subject to.”

“This is flat out drug dealing. … There is no doctor-patient relationship whatsoever. These are people who are writing these prescriptions and sending them to anybody who asks, don’t know where they’re going, and there is no relationship — period,” Murrill continued. The previous rules governing the prescription of mifepristone required abortion drug manufacturers “to have a contract with a doctor that prescribed these medications, and they had to comply with these elevated FDA rules which required in-person dispensing and ultrasound and post care,” she explained. “All of those things meant you needed an individual personal relationship with a doctor. You don’t have that anymore. And it is illegal to use those pills here for an abortion. So every one of those are illegal abortions being practiced in our state without any medical supervision whatsoever.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, himself a former Louisiana state legislator, commended Murrill and the state’s leadership for filing the lawsuit. “I applaud my home state of Louisiana for filing this lawsuit to reinstate commonsense safety requirements that the Biden administration so callously and dangerously removed,” he asserted. “The Trump administration should repeal approval of mifepristone altogether, but it should also swiftly adopt a policy that aligns with its declaration that abortion belongs under state jurisdiction.”

“Mifepristone has become a murder weapon. The drug is under review because it is unsafe for women — but it is also a tool used by killers — many times against a woman’s will or without her knowledge,” Perkins noted. “While a transparent, unbiased review of mifepristone is taking place, abusers could be disarmed if the Trump administration would re-enact and strengthen the FDA safety protocols originally governing the drug.”

Louisiana recently issued an arrest warrant for a California-based abortionist who shipped mifepristone to a couple in the Bayou State. The abortion drugs were actually ordered by a man who used his pregnant wife’s email to obtain the pills before hiding them in her food and coercing her into an abortion. In numerous instances, women have been coerced into taking abortion drugs in states where the practice is illegal, sometimes by boyfriends or husbands, sometimes even by family members. According to a study from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) this summer, 84% of abortion drugs dispensed by mail are shipped to states with pro-life laws.

However, many blue states and districts — namely, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia — have enacted “shield laws,” protecting abortionists in their states from being sued or prosecuted by officials in pro-life states for violating pro-life state laws.

When the FDA first approved mifepristone for prescription in 2000, three in-person physician visits were required before the drug could be prescribed, the drug could only be prescribed by a physician, it had to be dispensed and consumed in the physician’s office, and a follow-up visit was required, as was reporting of any complications. Many of those provisions were jettisoned by then-President Barack Obama in 2016, including the requirement that the abortion drug be prescribed by a physician and consumed in-office, as well as the mandatory follow-up visit and reporting of complications. Obama’s FDA also lowered the number of required in-person physician visits prior to prescription and increased the “maximum gestational age” for prescribing the drug from seven weeks to 10.

In 2023, then-President Joe Biden and his administration eliminated many of the few remaining safeguards, requiring no in-person physician visits, no physician to prescribe the drug, no dispensing or consuming the drug in-office, no follow-up visit, and no reporting of complications. Murrill called the Biden-era changes “entirely arbitrary.” She explained, “The data has always been there, [warning] that this is dangerous for women. That’s why the protocols are in place in the first place. Women can get sepsis if they have a partial abortion, [and] that happens in a significant number of these cases.” The Louisiana AG explained that abortion drugs can and do cause serious complications, including hemorrhaging and even death, in some cases. “There [are] all kinds of contraindications also for women to not take these pills. That’s why you were required to see a doctor, have an ultrasound, and also have some follow-up care if, in fact, you were using these.”

Murrill also questioned the FDA’s recent decision to expand access to the generic version of the abortion drug last week. “What was baffling was that they found the time, even facing an impending government shutdown, to approve generic drugs in this space, even after they have admitted that the Biden administration rule was arbitrary and capricious and unfounded and unsupported by the data,” she recounted. “I don’t understand how that happened, I really don’t. I think that the White House … seemed to be poised to withdraw the Biden administration rules. And then the FDA turned around and approved a generic” abortion drug. “You know, right on the tails of admitting that the Biden rules were arbitrary. And so I don’t know why that happened. It shouldn’t have happened.”

Mary Szoch, director of FRC’s Center for Human Dignity, told The Washington Stand, “Once again, Louisiana is stepping up to the plate in defense of women and of unborn children. Louisiana is a state where unborn life is valued; where women are valued.” She added, “Leaders there — especially AG Murrill — recognize that when one person is attacked by the abortion industry, everyone around them suffers because the impact of one life is incalculable.”

“The Biden administration’s repeal of the in-person dispensing requirement has directly harmed the people of Louisiana. In a state where unborn lives are protected from abortion and women are protected from the pressures of the abortion industry and abusers who utilize it, the FDA’s removal of the in-person dispensing requirement has resulted in multiple Louisiana women being pressured or forced into taking mifepristone,” Szoch observed. “Tragically, though this drug’s use is illegal in Louisiana and it is unwanted by many women, the lack of in-person dispensing has allowed abusers to kill several mothers’ unborn children, and the pain and suffering these mothers have undergone is unimaginable.” She added, “Louisiana is working in every way possible to right this wrong — even taking on the FDA. Let’s praise God for their courage and pray for the success of their lawsuit.”

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.