The Trump administration asked a federal judge on Monday to reject a case that tries to abruptly limit access to the abortion mifePristone pill, taking on the same position as the Biden administration in a carefully looked at case that has important implications for access to abortion.
The deposit of the Court by the Department of Justice is surprising, given that President Trump and a number of officials of his administration have strongly opposed the rights of abortion. Trump often boasts that he has appointed three of the judges of the Supreme Court who voted in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, who had guaranteed national law to abortion. And so far in his second term, his administration has taken measures to reduce the programs that support reproductive health.
The storage is the first time that the Trump administration has plundered the cause, which tries to reverse numerous regulatory changes that the Food and Drug Administration has made in the last ten years that has significantly expanded access to MifePristone.
The request of the Trump administration makes no mention of the merits of the case, which have not yet been considered by the courts. Rather, echoing the topic that the Biden administration made just before Trump came in office, the court deposit states that the case does not satisfy the legal standard to be listened to in the federal district court in which it was filed.
The case was presented by the Conservative General States of three States – Missouri, Idaho and Kansas – before the judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the United States District Court for the northern district of Texas, a nominated Trump who strongly opposes abortion.
“States do not contest that their statements have no link with the northern district of Texas”, wrote the lawyers of the Department of Justice in the deposit.
“Regardless of the merits of the statements of the States, the States cannot proceed in this Court”, they concluded, adding that the complaint “should be rejected or transferred due to lack of location”.
Mary Ziegler, professor of law and expert of law on the University of California, Davis, said that the support of the Trump Administration to the previous request of the Biden Administration to archive the case “is surprising, but I think the best way to read it is that they are just purchasing time to understand what to do with MifePristone”.
He said that the deposit “avoids saying anything about the substance”, which, has suggested, allows the Trump administration to delay the telegraphs by his opinions on MifePristone and to check if and when he acts to limit the drug.
The political calculation of Mr. Trump on abortion has changed from his first term. Although the Republicans have prevailed in the 2024 elections, also the rights of abortion, with voting measures to protect access to abortion by winning in various conservative states, including Missouri. The voters of Kansas, one of the other complaints in case, approved the rights of abortion in 2022, a year in which the Democrats obtained strong earnings to the congress in part due to a repercussions against the republicans on abortion. During the presidential campaign, Trump tried to adapt to changing political winds on the matter, sometimes taking positions that frustrated social conservatories.
Mrs. Ziegler said that the deposit of the Court of Monday could reflect the desire to be politically cautious on abortion, perhaps up to the medium -term elections of 2026.
“I think he thinks that doing something bold on MifePristone can return against political failure,” he said. “But he has many anti-abortion voters who not only hope he does something about MifePristone but still expect it.”
“In this case there has not yet been a merit in this case,” he added, “so I think the strategy of avoiding merits and kicking the can along the road is working well for Trump at the moment, but it is not clear whether it is sustainable.”
The next step of the case will be that judge Kacsmaryk decides whether to fire him or allow him to proceed.
If the cause has succeeded, it could have a large impact on access to abortion in the United States, where the abortion pills now represent almost two thirds of pregnancy endings.
Among the measures of the FDA, the cause tries to reverse is a disposition that has removed the requirement that patients visited in person to obtain MifePristone. The restoration of the person requirement will interrupt rapid growth to prescribe abortion pills through telemedicine and send them to patients, including those in states with bans of abortion.
“The removal of the provision of disbursement of person allowed a drug economy for the postal order of 50 states,” wrote the general of the lawyers in their complaint. The cause also tries to reverse the approval of the generic MifePristone agency, now the most used form of the drug; the ability for nurses and other health workers who are not doctors to prescribe MifePristone; And the ability of retail pharmacies, such as CVS and Walgreens, to dispense drugs.
And he asks for new FDA restrictions on MifePristone, including banning the drug for anyone who is less than 18 years old.
The cause argues that the actions of the FDA that have expanded access to MifePristone have allowed women to obtain pills for abortion despite the prohibitions or restrictions of state abortion. For this reason, he says, the health systems in the states where abortion is limited or put out of the treatment of patients who visit the emergency room for follow-up care or complications of abortion, costing money to the states. He also says that these states have been damaged because the “loss of fetal life and potential births” reduces the “potential population of each state”.
The cause also maintains that the FDA has violated the Comstock law, an anti-vice law forced since 1873 which prohibits the shipments “intended for the prevention of conception or the performance of abortion”. An opinion of the 2022 justice department stated that the law should not be interpreted to criminalize the shipment of abortion pills in most cases. The Department of Justice of Mr. Trump has not canceled or changed this opinion.
The case was initially filed in November 2022 by a consortium of doctors and anti-abortion groups and made its way to the Supreme Court. But in a unanimous sentence in June, the judges eliminated the case, saying that the complaints did not stand up to sue because they could not show that they had been damaged by the decisions of the FDA on MifePristone.
A few months later, the three general prosecutors revived the case and filed a complaint modified in the same court in Texas before the judge Kacsmaryk. In the first iteration of the case, judge Kacsmaryk issued sentences that strictly criticized the FDA and adopted most of the terminology used by anti-abortion activists.
The abortion pills are prescribed up to 12 weeks in pregnancy in the United States. Women in states with prohibitions of abortion have increasingly sought pills for abortion through telemedicine suppliers.
Currently, 19 states have more rigorous prohibitions or restrictions than the standard established by ROE v. Wade. In the states that support abortion rights, telemedicine abortions suppliers have expanded and a number of states have approved shield laws that protect doctors and other health suppliers who prescribe and send abortion pills to patients in states with prohibitions or restrictions.
The typical pharmacological abortion regime involves MifePristone, which blocks a hormone necessary for the development of pregnancy, followed from 24 to 48 hours later by Misoprostol, which causes contractions similar to those during an abortion.
MifePristone has been approved for abortion 25 years ago. Misoprostol, which has long been widely available for different medical conditions, can interrupt a pregnancy on its own, but the cause does not seek any restriction on the misoprostol. Research decades have found safe pills and serious rare complications.
In January, just before Mr. Trump came into office, the Biden Justice Department presented a motion to reject the case, citing several reasons, including the Texas court was the wrong headquarters. The motion also stated that the three states had not shown that they had been concretely damaged by the MifePristone regulations of the FDA and that the states had not taken the required measures to first look for the regulatory rollback through the administrative channels of the FDA.
The deposit of the Trump administration court cites the same reasons. “States also argue that the actions of the FDA have made it easier for individuals” to evade state laws, “said the brief.
“But also assuming it was true,” he said, “the simple fact that someone could violate the state law” does not only hurt a state government in order to satisfy the legal standard to sue.
The officials of the Trump administration have previously said little about the fact that they intend to trace access to MifePristone. Last month, the commissioner of the FDA, dr. Martin A. Makary, said during an interview in a journalism conference that had no “program to act on MifePristone”. But he also said that “there is a set in the course of data that is coming to the FDA on MifePristone”.
“So if the data suggest something or tell us that there is a real signal, then I – we cannot promise that we will not act on those data that we have not yet seen,” he added.
In addition to the FDA, the two MifePristone producers are attributed in case. Danco Laboratories, which makes MiFeprex, the brand version of the drug, requested to be added to the case immediately after the original deposit in 2022