White House faces mifepristone test

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The Trump administration is set to face another key test on abortion, with two months to go until the midterm elections.

A three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans is poised to hear oral arguments next week in a case that could eventually restrict the nationwide distribution of the abortion drug mifepristone.   

Medication has become the most common method of abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, with much of that increase coming from telehealth prescriptions.

The Biden administration loosened telehealth regulations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing a surge of pills to be prescribed through telehealth, in pharmacies and through the mail.   

Louisiana, which has almost completely banned abortion, objected to the policy and sued.  

The state argued that the FDA’s permissive rules undercut its near-total abortion ban and were a violation of the state’s sovereignty. Louisiana also asserted the FDA didn’t have enough safety data to roll back the in-person dispensing requirement. 

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that supports abortion access, about 91,000 abortions were provided last year via telehealth prescription of abortion medication sent by mail to states with bans, including more than 9,300 in Louisiana. 

“The stakes in this case are enormous,” Kelly Baden, Vice President for U.S. Policy & Communications at Guttmacher said in a statement. “Patients, providers, and communities have endured nonstop attacks on abortion access— the Fifth Circuit must reject this baseless case and affirm the status quo for nationwide access to medication abortion.” 

The Louisiana case has put the Trump administration in an awkward political bind: it won’t defend moves made by the Biden........

© The Hill