ACLJ Files Amicus Brief in Fifth Circuit Urging Reversal of Biden-FDA’s Dangerous Abortion Pill Expansion

Today we filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in State of Louisiana v. FDA, supporting Louisiana and plaintiff Rosalie Markezich against the Biden Administration’s 2023 loosening of restrictions on the abortion pill.

This case is critical. The FDA’s changes under the Biden Administration removed key safeguards – like the in-person dispensing requirement – making it far easier for bad actors to obtain the drugs and for pro-abortionists to ship these powerful drugs by mail into states where abortion is illegal. The result has been devastating, enabling nearly 1,000 abortions per month in Louisiana alone through mail-order schemes that bypass medical oversight.

Our brief dismantles the myth that chemical abortion is “safe” or “safer than childbirth.” By design, mifepristone combined with misoprostol induces pregnancy loss – an adverse outcome that medical authorities warn against in any other context. Every woman who takes these pills experiences the intended harm of terminating her pregnancy – not to mention a host of other complications. Claims of minimal adverse events ignore this fundamental reality.

The oft-repeated assertion that abortion is 14 times safer than childbirth crumbles under scrutiny. This comparison, drawn primarily from a 2012 study, suffers from multiple fatal flaws: double-counting abortion deaths in pregnancy mortality statistics, measuring per live birth (excluding miscarriages and stillbirths from the denominator while including related deaths), failing to adjust for gestational age, severe underreporting of abortion deaths, and ignoring delayed risks like elevated suicide rates. Peer-reviewed research, properly accounting for these issues, shows abortion is actually more dangerous than childbirth.

Even the current Administration has acknowledged flaws in the prior FDA’s safety analysis, announcing a new review of mifepristone’s risks. Take action with us. Sign the petition: Defeat the Abortion Pill at the Supreme Court.

Far from empowering women, abortion – especially easy-access mail-order pills – too often becomes a weapon in the hands of abusers, traffickers, predators, and others. Studies show substantial majorities of women feel pressured into abortions they do not truly want. Many report aborting to please partners or out of fear.

     Our brief details how human traffickers force abortions to maintain control over victims in the sex trade. Clinics have failed to screen for trafficking, with former Planned Parenthood employees reporting inadequate training. Sexual predators use abortion to conceal crimes against minors. Domestic abusers beat or kill women who refuse to abort, and mail-order pills make secret or forced administration dramatically easier – as alleged in plaintiff Rosalie Markezich’s case, where her boyfriend ordered the drugs in her name, had them mailed, and forced her to take them.

Irresponsible men evade accountability, coercive employers pressure employees, and eugenic patterns persist. Prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome leads to termination rates of 67% or higher in the U.S. Easy pill access scales these harms.

Further, the distribution enabled by the 2023 REMS changes violates the Comstock Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 1461–1462), which criminalizes using the mail or common carriers to ship abortion-inducing drugs. The FDA cannot lawfully facilitate federal crimes. Justices Thomas and Alito highlighted these issues at the stay stage.

The ACLJ has long fought against the FDA’s flawed approval and expansion of mifepristone. As we detailed in our earlier coverage of the federal court ruling exposing problems with the FDA’s approval process and our arguments to the appeals court that mailing abortion pills violates federal law, these drugs endanger women while enabling exploitation. We reinforced these points in our Supreme Court briefing and analyzed the implications of the high court’s ruling on the Biden-era expansions. The pattern is clear: Deregulation prioritizes ideology over safety and invites abuse.

The FDA’s experiment with deregulated abortion pills has endangered women and children while empowering abusers. Louisiana is right to push back. The Fifth Circuit should affirm the district court and reject this unlawful framework.

The ACLJ will continue fighting to defend the sanctity of human life and hold the FDA accountable. Join us – visit ACLJ.org to sign our petition, share this brief, and support our pro-life work.