(LifeSiteNews) — Louisiana sued the Food and Drug Administration for its role in letting dangerous abortion drugs flood the state and effectively undermining the fight to protect innocent preborn babies. The state did so alongside a woman who said she was coerced into taking abortion drugs her boyfriend gave her.
“The fight for life is far from over,” the lawsuit begins.
The Dobbs v. Jackson lawsuit empowered states like Louisiana to protect babies from abortion, but the FDA’s decision to remove practically all restrictions on mifepristone has undercut the pro-life protections. Undermining Dobbs was the express purpose of changing the regulations, as Louisiana argues with evidence from the Biden administration’s own statements.
There are roughly 8,000 to 10,000 Louisiana babies killed every year from the abortion drugs, which are illegal in the state, the lawsuit notes. It cites data from a pro-abortion group called the Society of Family Planning.
“This extra-territorial mailing of abortion drugs is illegal under state law – and it is the direct result of the Biden Administration’s 2023 agency action expressly facilitating this scheme,” Attorney General Liz Murrill says in the lawsuit. “That action is the subject of this lawsuit.”
Specifically, the Biden administration ignored longstanding regulations that allowed the dangerous drugs to be dispensed in person. This was part of the administration’s whole of government approach to ensure women could kill their babies without any restrictions following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs.
These changes harmed Rosalie Markezich, who is a co-plaintiff with the state of Louisiana.
The lawsuit 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. 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.
But for FDA’s 2023 [Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy] Rosalie would have received the protection of a private in-person medical appointment. And if she had been able to tell a doctor that she did not want an abortion, the drugs that took her baby’s life would never have been provided.
A federal court has already ruled that regulatory changes violated rulemaking. However, the Supreme Court did not weigh in on this in the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, instead only ruling that the plaintiffs, including medical professionals, did not have standing.
Louisiana, and countless women, are injured by the REMS changes, according to the lawsuit.
The FDA’s current rules “directly violates Louisiana’s abortion laws and prevents Louisiana from protecting the lives of unborn babies despite the promise of Dobbs,” the state says. “That conduct also has directly generated medical emergencies that harm Louisiana women and emergency room visits that harm the State.”
Removal of safety requirements had intended effect to increase abortions, suit says
The state also presented evidence showing that abortion drug pushers took advantage of the Biden changes to distribute thousands of drugs.
It cited a Wall Street Journal article about abortion activists “hosting ‘pill-packing parties to help strangers in faraway states circumvent strict law,'” as one such example.
The lawsuit also details the medically dangerous, and potentially illegal, advice of Aid Access staffers, who tell women not to go to the emergency room, even if they have heavy bleeding. Another staffer told a teenage girl to toss her dead baby in the trash. “There’s nothing in there that’s traceable back to you … As long as you don’t tell anybody,” Dr. Linda Prine said.
The lawsuit also criticized the FDA’s recent approval of yet another abortion drug by Evita Solutions.
The Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment on the recent drug approval or the lawsuit.
“HHS does not comment on litigation,” spokeswoman Emily Hilliard told LifeSiteNews via email on Thursday. She pointed LifeSiteNews to a previous statement along with an X post by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“HHS is conducting a study of the reported adverse effects of mifepristone to ensure the FDA’s risk mitigation program for the drug is sufficient to protect women from unstated risks,” the department previously stated.
The Biden administration removed mifepristone’s in-person dispensing rule without studying the safety risks. We are filling that gap. Last month, I joined @DrMakaryFDA in writing to state attorneys general, pledging to review all the evidence — including real-world outcomes — on… pic.twitter.com/G0eE4H4y42
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) October 2, 2025
A national pro-life group wants to see further action from the FDA to protect preborn babies and women.
“The FDA has allowed a veritable Wild West to ensue by allowing the distribution of abortion pills in the first place and then by allowing them to be sent through the mail,” Katie Xavios, national director of American Life League, told LifeSiteNews via email. “Planned Parenthood admitted that more than 70% of all abortions are now done via the deadly pill regimen, with the majority of these pills being sent through the mail.”
Echoing Louisiana’s lawsuit, Xavios said the availability of abortion pills makes “hollow” any pro-life “victories” to restrict abortions.
“The situation is a win-win for those in the abortion industry; they save money by not having an in-person clinic, and they can still send pills that kill children and often harm moms,” she said.
She also criticized the FDA’s recent approval of another abortion drugs, saying they must be “remove[d] from the market entirely.”
“These pills take a life 100% of the time; there is no way to make them ‘safer,'” Xavios said.