The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit on May 1 sided with Louisiana’s case against a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule allowing mail-order abortion pills. The decision ordered the reinstatement of safety rules that were suspended by the Biden administration in 2023 in order to bypass pro-life state laws.
“We agree … that Louisiana has shown it is suffering irreparable harm,” the court’s opinion stated in part. The opinion, authored by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, argued that the Biden-era rule change removing in-person screening and dispensing requirements for the abortion drug mifepristone “injures Louisiana by undermining its laws protecting unborn human life and also by causing it to spend Medicaid funds on emergency care for women harmed by mifepristone.”
“Both injuries are irreparable,” Duncan wrote.
The opinion also cited the Biden administration’s stated goal of expanding abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, pointing out that the removal of the safety measures in 2023 directly undermined Louisiana’s pro-life law protecting the lives of nearly all unborn babies.
“Every abortion facilitated by FDA’s action cancels Louisiana’s ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that ‘every unborn child is [a] human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person,’” Duncan stated.
A pro-life victory the Trump administration opposed
The circuit court decision was widely hailed as a pro-life victory, including by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who brought the original lawsuit together with the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
“The Biden abortion cartel facilitated the deaths of thousands of Louisiana babies (and millions in other states) through illegal mail-order abortion pills,” Murrill wrote in a post on X May 1. “Today, that nightmare is over, thanks to the hard work of my office and our friends at [ADF].”
The news comes after the Trump administration roiled pro-life advocates in January by pressing for Louisiana’s lawsuit to be paused or dismissed while the FDA completed a safety review of mifepristone.
In a brief sent to a federal judge, the Trump Justice Department “asked the court to pause or dismiss the lawsuit entirely, arguing that the plaintiffs are not facing ongoing harm and that court action now would interfere with the FDA’s own safety review of mifepristone,” Zeale News reported at the time. “The government said judicial involvement at this stage would unnecessarily consume court resources.”
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had promised the safety review of mifepristone during their respective confirmation hearings a year earlier, with Kennedy stating before lawmakers, “I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year. I agree with him that the states should control abortion.”
A year after those promises, the DOJ’s brief stated the safety review of mifepristone could still take “a year or more” to complete, Zeale News reported, “a timeline that would delay any regulatory changes until 2027 or later.”
More than 60% of abortions committed in the U.S. are chemical – induced via abortion drugs – rather than surgical.