Trump’s administration has asked a federal judge on Monday to reject a lawsuit seeking to abruptly restrict access to the Mifepristone abortion pill – taking the same position as Biden’s administration at a time -monitored period, which has a significant impact on abortions.
The court’s filing by the Ministry of Justice is impressive, as President Trump and several officials in his administration have strongly opposed the rights of abortions. Mr Trump often has that he has appointed three of the judges of the Supreme Court who voted in 2022 to overthrow Roe V. Wade, who had guaranteed the national right to abortion. And so far in his second term, his administration has taken steps to limit programs that support reproductive health.
The deposition is the first time that Trump’s administration has weighed the lawsuit, which has been seeking to reverse numerous regulatory changes made by the Food and Drug Administration in the last decade that has significantly extended access to Mifepristone.
The request of the Trump administration makes no reference to the advantages of the case, which have not yet been examined by the courts. On the contrary, reflecting the argument that Biden’s administration made shortly before Mr Trump took over, the court’s deposition claims that the case does not meet the legal standard to hear in the federal regional court in which it was lodged.
The case was filed by conservative three -state lawyers – Missouri, Idaho and Kansas – before Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the US Regional Court for the Northern Texas area, an appointed Trump who is strongly opposed.
“States do not dispute that their allegations have nothing to do with the northern area of ​​Texas,” the lawyers of the Ministry of Justice write in the deposition.
“Regardless of the advantages of state claims, states cannot proceed with this court,” they concluded, adding that the complaint “must be rejected or transferred due to lack of space”.
Mary Ziegler, a professor of law and expert on abortion at the University of California, Davis, said that the support of Trump’s administration for Biden’s previous request to reject the case “is amazing, but I think the best way to buy it.
He said that the deposit “avoids saying anything at all”, which, as he suggested, allows Trump’s administration to delay the telegraphy of its views on mifepristone and check when and when it takes action to limit the drug.
Mr Trump’s political calculus on abortion has changed since his first term. Although Republicans prevailed in the 2024 elections, abortions, with voting measures to protect access to abortion in various conservative states, including Missouri. Voters in Kansas, one of the other plaintiffs in the case, approved the rights of abortions in 2022, a year when Democrats earned strong profits in Congress in part because of the reaction against the Republicans for abortion. During the presidential campaign, Mr Trump attempted to adapt to the changing political winds on the issue, sometimes taking places that were frustrated by social conservatives.
Mrs Ziegler said Monday’s court deposit may reflect the desire to be politically careful in abortion, possibly up to the 2026 intermediate elections.
“I think he thinks that realizing anything bold at Mifepristone could be politically reversed,” he said. “But he has a lot of voters against abortion who not only hope he will do something at Mifepristone, but he still expects he will do it.”
“There has been no decision on the decision in this case,” he added, “so I think the strategy that avoids the benefits and kicks of the container under the road works well for Trump right now, but it is unclear if it is viable.”
The next step in the case will be for Judge Kacsmaryk to decide whether to reject it or allow him to proceed.
If the treatment succeeded, it could have a wide impact on access to abortion in the United States, where abortion pills now represent almost two -thirds of pregnancy terminals.
Among the FDA counts the treatment seeks to be reversed is a provision that has removed the requirement that patients visit prescriptions in person to obtain mifepristone. The restoration of the personal requirement would stop the rapidly growing practice of prescribing abortion pills through their telemedicine and mission to patients, including those with abortions.
“The abolition of personal protection distribution has allowed a drug economy for drugs for drugs,” the Attorney General writes in their complaint. The treatment also seeks to reverse the approval by the organization for the MIFEPristone General, now the most widely used form of the drug. The ability for nurses and other health providers who are not doctors to prescribe mifepristone. And the ability for retail pharmacies, such as CVS and Walgreens, to distribute the drug.
And it calls for new FDA restrictions on Mifepristone, including Outlaw the drug for anyone under 18 years of age.
The trial argues that the actions of the FDA that extended access to Mifepristone have allowed women to acquire abortion pills despite state abortion bans or restrictions. Because of this, he says, health systems in states where abortion is limited or outlawed are required to treat patients who visit emergency rooms for monitoring complications or abortions, costing the money of states. He also claims that these states have been damaged because the “loss of fetal life and possible births” reduces the “potential population of each state”.
The lawsuit also argues that the FDA has violated the law Comstock, a rarely imposed law against sinking since 1873 prohibiting the mail “intended to prevent arrest or the supply of abortions”. An opinion of 2022 by the Ministry of Justice stated that the law should not be interpreted to criminalize the correspondence of abortion pills in most cases. Mr Trump’s justice ministry has not canceled or changed this opinion.
The case was initially filed in November 2022 with a consortium of doctors and groups against abortion and reached the Supreme Court. But in a unanimous decision in June, the judges threw the case, saying the plaintiffs had not been standing for sucking because they could not show that they had been damaged by the FDA decisions on Mifepristone.
A few months later, the three general lawyers revived the lawsuit and submitted amended complaint to the same court in Texas before Judge Kacsmaryk. During the first repetition of the case, Judge Kacsmaryk issued decisions that carefully criticized the FDA and adopted much of the terminology used by activists against abortion.
Abortation pills are prescribed up to 12 weeks in pregnancy in the United States. Women in states with abortion bans have increasingly searched for abortion pills through telemedicine providers.
Currently, 19 states have banned or restrictions stricter than the standard designated by ROE V. Wade. In states supporting abortion rights, telemedicine abortion providers have expanded and some states have passed shield laws that protect doctors and other health providers prescribing and sending abortion pills to patients in states with bans or restrictions.
The typical abortion of drug abortions includes MIFEPristone, which prevents a hormone required for pregnancy development, is followed 24 to 48 hours later by Misoprostol, which causes contractions similar to those during a miscarriage.
Mifepristone was approved for abortion 25 years ago. Misoprostol, which has long been widely available for several medical conditions, can end a pregnancy on its own, but the treatment does not seek restrictions on misoprostol. Decades of research have found that pills are safe and serious complications.
In January, shortly before Mr Trump assumed duties, the Biden Ministry of Justice made a proposal to reject the lawsuit, referring to various reasons, including that the Texas court was the wrong space. The proposal also stated that the three states had not shown that they had been damaged by the FDA’s Mifepristone regulations and that the states had not taken the necessary measures to first seek regulatory reinstatement through the FDA administrative channels.
Trump administration court reports the same reasons. “States also argue that FDA’s actions have made it easier for individuals to avoid state laws,” the brief said.
“But even assuming it was true,” he said, “the simple fact that one can violate state law” does not injure his own state government in a way that responds to the legal model to sue.
Trump administration officials have said little about whether they intend to restore access to Mifepristone. Last month, FDA Commissioner Dr. Martin A. Makary, he said during an interview with a journalism conference that “he had no plans to take action on Mifepristone”. But he also said that “there is an ongoing set of data coming to the FDA in Mifepristone”.
“So, if the data suggests something or tells us that there is a real message, then I – we cannot promise that we are not going to act on this data we have not yet seen,” he added.
In addition to the FDA, the two manufacturers of Mifepristone are charged with the case. The Danco Laboratories, which make MIFEPREX, the branded version of the drug, requested to be added to the case shortly after the initial deposit in 2022. Genbiopro, which makes the general MIFEPristone, became a party last month after attacking that Trump’s administration will not fully support FDA.
