The Department of Justice (DOJ) moved March 6 to dismiss or pause a pro-life lawsuit brought by Missouri, Idaho, and Kansas that seeks to reinstate safety restrictions on the abortion drug mifepristone.
The case, Missouri v. FDA, challenges a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy adopted under the Biden administration that allows chemical abortion drugs to be prescribed through telemedicine and mailed to patients. The states argue the policy undermines their abortion bans and weakens safety protections for women.
If the states ultimately prevail, a federal court would likely reinstate earlier FDA restrictions requiring multiple in-person doctor visits and prohibiting mail-order distribution of mifepristone nationwide.
In a filing made late March 6, DOJ attorneys argued the states lack legal standing to bring the case, claiming they failed to demonstrate a direct injury and did not first pursue available administrative remedies. The department asked the court to either fully dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction or pause the proceedings while the FDA conducts an ongoing safety review of mifepristone under its Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) program.
“Intervenor Plaintiffs ask the Court to make the very sort of difficult scientific judgments that Congress entrusted to FDA while the agency is considering the same issues,” DOJ attorneys wrote in court documents.
DOJ officials indicated in January that mifepristone’s safety review could take a year or more to complete. Pro-life advocates warn that delaying the Missouri lawsuit allows abortion drugs to remain widely available while the review proceeds.
CatholicVote President and CEO Kelsey Reinhardt expressed concern about the DOJ’s legal posture, noting that it has raised “understandable concerns among Catholics and other voters who helped build the coalition that returned President Trump to the White House.”
She noted that the landscape of abortion has shifted significantly since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, with chemical abortion becoming the primary means by which unborn children are killed in the U.S.
The Department of Justice’s Friday filing in litigation over the abortion pill has raised understandable concerns among Catholics and other voters who helped build the coalition that returned President Trump to the White House.
— Kelsey (Wicks) Reinhardt (@catholickelsey) March 9, 2026
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, the… https://t.co/M0eaIaSIyo
“Any serious effort to defend unborn life must address directly the reality that chemical abortion became the primary driver of abortion in America,” Reinhardt said. “At minimum, it requires enforcing the safeguards that once governed these drugs, ensuring they are not distributed casually through the mail, and supporting the right of states to protect life within their borders.”
Pro-life voters are now looking for clarity from the administration on how it plans to address abortion drugs distributed through telemedicine and mail delivery, she said.
“If this legal posture is part of a broader plan to address the abortion pill regime that emerged after Dobbs, that strategy should be clearly communicated,” Reinhardt said, adding, “At a moment like this, clarity and resolve matter.”
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, sharply criticized the DOJ’s request in a March 6 statement. She accused the Trump-Vance administration of once again “taking the side of abortion drug dealers and the radical Left against women and children, public health and safety, and the overwhelmingly pro-life GOP base.”
“Burying this shameful move in a Friday evening news dump underscores how indefensible it is,” Dannenfelser said. “On top of this, in a federal court hearing less than two weeks ago, the administration admitted it has NO details on the timeline for Commissioner Makary’s promised safety study of mifepristone – if indeed it has really begun.”
The filing comes as the DOJ is separately challenging another lawsuit over abortion pill rules. In Louisiana v. FDA, the department asked a federal judge Jan. 27 to delay or dismiss a similar pro-life lawsuit seeking to restore in-person safeguards for abortion drugs, as Zeale News previously reported. In September 2025, the FDA also approved another generic version of mifepristone.
In her statement, Dannenfelser pointed to a recent criminal case in Texas as evidence of the dangers of abortion drugs being widely available. According to FOX26 Houston, officials said in February that 25-year-old Jon Rueben Gabriel Demeter was arrested after he allegedly administered an abortion drug to his child’s mother without her knowledge or consent. The child, whose mother named her Presley Mae, was stillborn. Demeter has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon causing serious bodily injury-family violence.
“While Secretary Kennedy is focused on the scourge of Dunkin’ coffee and the DOJ has been busy litigating against concerned Republican leaders in ruby-red states, women and girls are under assault and babies are being killed,” Dannenfelser said. “More Americans die from abortion drugs than fentanyl, cocaine and heroin combined. Haven’t we seen enough ‘American carnage’?”
Dannenfelser said the Trump administration “at the very least” can and should take abortion pills out of the mail, which she noted “is no more or less than the policy of the first Trump administration.”
“With 8 in 10 of GOP base voters wanting to reinstate in-person doctor visits, and one third of the most engaged voters at risk of sitting out midterms,” she concluded, “Trump-Vance world ignores this crisis at its own political peril.”