The FDA requested the pause in order to review its policy permitting the drug, mifepristone, to be mailed to patients.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked a federal court on Jan. 27 to pause a lawsuit Louisiana brought to reverse the Biden administration’s deregulation of the abortion pill mifepristone.
The agency asked a federal court to “stay all proceedings in the matter” while it studies its policy permitting mifepristone to be mailed to patients without an in-person appearance.
In an accompanying brief, the FDA said that the process “often takes approximately a year or more to conduct,” though it intends to “complete the study ‘sooner than that timeframe.’”
“Given this widespread debate over the safety of mifepristone, FDA has concluded that the best path forward is for the agency to reconsider the restrictions on mifepristone based on all the evidence before the agency,” the FDA wrote in its brief.
“[Louisiana] now threaten[s] to short-circuit the agency’s orderly review and study of the safety risks of mifepristone by asking this court for an immediate stay [of the policy],” it added as the reason for the request.
The FDA’s brief also said that because Louisiana is not suffering any ongoing harm from the policy, the state lacked standing, or a legal basis to sue the federal government in court.
In 2024, Louisiana designated mifepristone, a generic version of the abortion pill, as a “controlled substance,” effectively banning its sale and possession in the state.
However, pills have been mailed into Louisiana despite the ban.
“[The policy does not] require [Louisiana] to do anything or to refrain from doing anything,” the FDA’s brief read.
“Even if the availability of retail and mail-order dispensing does make mifepristone more difficult to police, that logistical burden on law enforcement does not constitute a cognizable Article III injury,” it added.
Article III refers to the constitutional provision that requires parties to have a real injury to gain standing for a suit.
Louisiana has argued that the policy hurt its efforts to ban abortion across the state and allegedly allowed abuse.
“President Biden had ordered his administration to ‘identify all ways’ to make abortion available in those states that, after Dobbs, opted to protect the life of the unborn,” Louisiana wrote in its initial complaint.
By Arjun Singh
