Sixty members of Congress filed an amicus brief with a Louisiana district court Feb. 13 supporting a lawsuit that challenges the Biden-era Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 2023 decision to drop in-person dispensing requirements for the abortion pill mifepristone.
Those supporting Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s case against the FDA include Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who is a physician and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who co-chairs the House Pro-Life Caucus. In the brief, Cassidy and Smith, along with dozens of other lawmakers, argue that by “expressly authorizing mail-order chemical abortion drugs, the FDA is endangering women’s health and safety by eliminating a medically necessary in-person examination to screen for contraindications.”
The lawmakers also raised concerns that doing away with the in-person dispensing requirement puts women at heightened risk of domestic abuse and coerced abortions, pointing to the case of Rosalie Markezich, a Louisiana woman whose boyfriend coerced her to take mifepristone he ordered from a California doctor. Markezich joins Murrill as a plaintiff in the suit.
The brief argues that the FDA reached “a predetermined and politically motivated conclusion to expand access to abortion drugs despite lacking enough evidence to show the change would be safe.”
In a press release, Smith highlighted research that suggests the FDA approved mail-order abortion pills despite known serious risks the drugs pose to women. According to Smith, an Ethics and Public Policy Center report found that more than one in 10 women who take mifepristone “experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days — over 22 times higher than the rate currently admitted by the FDA.”
According to a press release from the HELP Committee, the lawmakers claim the Biden administration violated federal law by repealing the in-person dispensing requirement and are calling on the court to reinstate the former regulations. The brief also asks the court to grant Murrill’s request for a preliminary injunction that would repeal the FDA’s 2023 changes while litigation continues.