Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), and 58 other members of the House and Senate joined together to file an amicus brief in support of Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s lawsuit seeking to restore the in-person dispensing requirement—negligently reversed by the Biden-era Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—for the chemical abortion drug, mifepristone.

             “Mifepristone is baby poison that starves the innocent unborn child to death and is extremely dangerous to women,” said Rep. Chris Smith. “Under ‘Abortion President’ Joe Biden, the FDA recklessly circumvented the law to remove the in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone, allowing women to easily receive it through the mail and ignoring the dangers these powerful abortion drugs pose to women.”

             Smith has long emphasized the FDA’s irresponsible actions with regard to mail-order mifepristone. “The FDA has engaged in gross negligence and a massive cover up of mifepristone’s harmful effects on women. A historic report released by the Ethics and Public Policy Center found that more than one out of ten (10.93%) women who take the chemical abortion drug mifepristone experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days—over 22 times higher than the rate currently admitted by the FDA,” Smith continued.

             “I thank Attorney General Murrill for defending women and babies in Louisiana and across the country. Chemical abortion drugs kill innocent children and put mothers’ lives at risk,” said Dr. Cassidy. “Safeguards protecting against coercion, such as the in-person dispensing requirement, must be reinstated immediately.”

             In the brief, the 60 members write: “[B]y expressly authorizing mail-order chemical abortion drugs, the FDA is endangering women’s health and safety by eliminating a medically necessary in-person examination to screen for contraindications.” Moreover, they raise concerns that “a woman seeking an abortion may be facing coercion or intimate partner violence (IPV), and without an in-person evaluation, a provider’s ability to discern that is limited.”

             In removing patient safeguards, the members argue that “the Biden FDA reached a predetermined and politically motivated conclusion to expand access to abortion drugs, despite lacking enough evidence to show the change would be safe. This is a clear violation of the FDA’s legal responsibilities…”

             The amicus brief notes that Plaintiff Rosalie Markezich was personally coerced into taking the abortion pill. They write, “A doctor did not examine Ms. Markezich nor detect the coercion she experienced. Her boyfriend ordered mifepristone from a California doctor and coerced Ms. Markezich to take it, resulting in her great distress and the loss of her baby.”

             The brief calls upon the Court to grant the preliminary relief requested by the Plaintiffs, affirming that “the FDA’s job is to ensure drug safety, not to encourage the risky use of drugs just to further former President Biden’s pro-abortion agenda. Exceeding its mandate is illegal and also harmful, both to the separation of powers and to women taking mifepristone.”

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