(LifeSiteNews) — Louisiana is appealing a federal judge’s ruling that stayed its challenge to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) permissive abortion pill rules, continuing to maintain that pro-lifers should not have to wait indefinitely for the Trump administration to take action.
Last fall, Louisiana sued the FDA over its Biden-era removal of the requirement that abortion drugs be dispensed in-person that drastically expanded their usage, encroached on state law, and harmed women such as co-plaintiff Rosalie Markezich. Its challenge is backed by 21 other states.
“Rosalie took abortion drugs that her boyfriend obtained via the U.S. Postal Service from a doctor in California. Rosalie did not want to have an abortion,” the lawsuit says. “But far from empowering Rosalie to make her own choice and preserving her autonomy, mail-order abortion drugs had Rosalie feeling trapped and terrified. She grieves the loss of her child and endures lasting emotional trauma.”
The change “directly violates Louisiana’s abortion laws and prevents Louisiana from protecting the lives of unborn babies despite the promise of Dobbs,” Louisiana says. “That conduct also has directly generated medical emergencies that harm Louisiana women and emergency room visits that harm the State.”
In response, the Trump administration has urged the court to at least temporarily deny relief to Louisiana and Markezich, arguing that they lacked legal standing and claiming that a judgment in the case would cause a “disruption” with the agency’s alleged ongoing review of the abortion pill, which U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised last May. The administration argued the review’s conclusion could render the lawsuit unnecessary if the agency ultimately decides to restore the in-person dispensing requirement on its own.
Last week, District Court Judge for the Western District of Louisiana David Joseph denied Louisiana’s challenge, granting the federal government’s request to stay the case while ordering it to provide a status update on its alleged review in six months.
Citing Supreme Court precedent that “courts owe significant deference to the politically accountable entities with the ‘background, competence, and expertise to assess public health,’” he ruled that “equities and the public interest weigh heavily in favor of FDA completing the job that the law requires it to do. Put differently, at this juncture, it is the completion of FDA’s promised good faith, evidence-based, and expeditious review of the mifepristone REMS, not ‘government by lawsuit,’ that this Court finds to be in the public interest.”
On April 8, the office of Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill filed notice of intent to appeal Joseph’s ruling to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Heartbeat supports Louisiana’s tireless and well-justified advocacy on behalf of the women harmed by mifepristone and the FDA’s inadequate protections governing the dispensing of this dangerous drug,” said Danielle White, general counsel of Heartbeat International, which has also filed an amicus brief in the case. “As we explained in our amicus brief at the district court level, the FDA has stripped away critical safety measures governing this black-box-warning medication, and countless women continue to pay the emotional, psychological, and physical price for that ongoing failure. The FDA’s promised course-correction cannot come quickly enough.”
Pro-lifers are not content to wait on the FDA because mail distribution of abortion pills has become abortion lobby’s most important tool for perpetuating abortion-on-demand and undermining pro-life laws, thanks to the difficulty of tracking pills shipped in nondescript packaging and pills usually taken in complete privacy.
The latest data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reports 1,125,930 clinical abortions in 2025, a slight increase from 2024, which Guttmacher attributed in large part to abortion pills. Planned Parenthood’s 2024–2025 annual report boasts it alone committed 434,450 abortions, a record number for the organization and eight percent more than the previous year.
This flood was unleashed by former President Joe Biden, who, after the fall of Roe, instituted rule changes allowing abortion pills to be dispensed without an in-person visit and choosing not to enforce federal law against mailing them across state lines. However, during his 2024 campaign, President Donald Trump declared he would not reverse that decision.
The administration’s promised review has given pro-lifers hope of reversal, but no conclusions or timetable have since been announced, prompting frustration among pro-lifers. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has gone so far as to question if the study is underway. Some have speculated that the White House may be delaying the review until after the midterm elections, for fear of the political reaction to a pro-life decision.