(LifeSiteNews) — Oral arguments were held on Wednesday at the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Louisiana’s lawsuit to force the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to restore safety restrictions on abortion pills that were eliminated by the Biden administration and have yet to be restored by the Trump administration.
Last fall, Louisiana sued the FDA over its removal of the requirement that abortion drugs be dispensed in-person, which drastically expanded their usage, encroached on state law, and harmed women such as co-plaintiff Rosalie Markezich.
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 in May 2025 (which is currently slated to be completed sometime after the midterm congressional elections). The administration argued that the review’s conclusion could render the lawsuit unnecessary if the agency ultimately decides to restore the in-person dispensing requirement on its own.
This past May, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to allow abortion pills to continue being distributed indefinitely while the suit works its way through the lower courts.
Live Action reports that Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill described the arguments as “very procedural,” largely concerning whether or not the state had standing to challenge the rules. Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga argued that it does, because the interstate abortion mail business enabled by the rule change directly undermines the state’s ability to enforce its own laws.
“You can buy an abortion pill online and get it by mail in Louisiana,” he explained. “The FDA has approved abortion pills by mail. Aid Access works with U.S. based abortion providers in so-called shield law states (this means that the states will protect the providers against legal action). Therefore, Aid Access can provide abortion services to all 50 U.S. states, including Louisiana.”
Judge Stephen Higginson questioned whether the federal government was directly responsible for Louisiana’s predicament, saying he was “looking at six different steps” and suggesting that the shield laws of states in which the pills originated, which “the government has nothing to do with,” were the real culprit.
“The drug manufacturers are profiting mightily off the backs of aborted babies. It’s disgusting,” Murrill has declared. “The evidence continues to show that this is dangerous medication for women. There are a lot of contraindications to the use of this medication. There’s a black-box warning on these pills for a reason.”
Mail-order pills have become the abortion lobby’s most potent tool for circumventing these laws and preserving abortion without Roe v. Wade. The latest data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute report 1,125,930 abortions committed by clinicians in 2025, a slight increase from 2024, which Guttmacher attributed in large part to abortion pills. Planned Parenthood’s 2024–2025 annual report says that it alone committed 434,450 abortions, a record number for the organization and eight percent more than the previous year.
Yet completely disconnecting the pills from medical supervision magnifies their already-established risks.
Pro-lifers point to an April 2025 analysis by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) which concluded that almost 11 percent of women suffer sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or other major conditions after taking mifepristone, according to insurance data, plus similar findings by the Restoration of America Foundation, as part of a “growing body of evidence indicating that the health risks associated with mifepristone abortions are severe, widespread, and significantly underreported.”
Another lawsuit against the FDA, brought by Florida and Texas, has been delayed until after the midterms.