Today, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals released a consequential decision blocking the Biden administration’s mail-order abortion policy. Because of this ruling, mail-order abortions will be halted, effective immediately. The ruling temporarily reinstates the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, the chemical abortion pill. As a result, women will be protected and countless preborn lives will be saved. In Louisiana alone, the state estimates 1,000 preborn lives are lost each month to these pills.
The Fifth Circuit has affirmed what the State of Louisiana has courageously and consistently articulated: The federal government cannot interfere with the protections offered to women and preborn children by pro-life states who seek to combat mail-order abortion drugs, a practice which violates those very protections. It’s past time for the FDA to reverse harmful, permissive policies, and, instead, to reinstate protections against the chemical abortion pill.
As the ruling states, “The public interest is not served by perpetuating a medical practice whose safety the agency admits was inadequately studied. Indeed, the public interest demands the opposite.”
The ERLC has persistently advocated for the reinstatement of guardrails like the in-person dispensing requirement, at a bare minimum, even as we work toward the end of abortion. This victory can be celebrated as we continue to advocate for the permanent eradication of the chemical abortion pill nationwide.
