It was the perfect magic trick. In late June 2022, congressional interns ran down the steps of the Supreme Court carrying a decision that was supposed to give Republicans exactly what they wanted. The overturning of Roe v. Wade was meant to be a grand slam for conservatives — the pinnacle of our stacked Supreme Court. Abortion was going to be completely eradicated in red states. Zero.
Instead, the legacy of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has served the Left better than Roe ever could. It gave President Joe Biden the perfect excuse to rally his troops behind making abortion accessible nationwide. His weapon? The Food and Drug Administration. By removing the in-person dispensing requirement for abortion drugs, the Biden administration helped create what would become one of the leading causes of death in America each year: the mail-order abortion pill.
The FDA did something disgustingly illegal, and it did so without congressional approval. By removing the in-person dispensing requirement for abortion drugs, the agency made it possible for virtually anyone, anywhere, to obtain them — even without confirming a pregnancy.
“Anyone, male or female, with 15 minutes to spare and access to the internet can get a mail-order abortion drug,” Gabriella McIntyre, an ADF litigant, told the Washington Examiner.
Alliance Defending Freedom is one of several conservative legal organizations working to right this wrong. It has brought State of Louisiana v. FDA, which seeks to overturn the policy and get abortion drugs out of the mail.
“Mail-order abortions eviscerate the promise of Dobbs because they override the will of pro-life states and actually prevent states from enforcing their laws,” senior counsel Erik Baptist told the Washington Examiner.
In this case, Rosalie Markezich was forced to take an abortion pill that her boyfriend had ordered under her name. The pill then terminated her pregnancy without her consent. Last week, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) asked acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about the case and what action the administration planned to take, reminding him that abortions had increased catastrophically since the policy took effect.
“I hate it that we have these Republican states in court against a Republican administration,” Hawley said at the confirmation hearing. “And it just seems to me that there’s got to be some solution to this. What do you think that is?”
“We have the most pro-life president in history,” Blanche responded. “I don’t want to talk about litigation strategy. We are not defending what Biden did, and will not. The FDA had a process, and we’re letting them go forward in it, and it takes a year. They’ve committed to doing it in significantly less time than a year. And we — not just the Department of Justice, but the Trump administration in its entirety — will protect the life of the unborn.”
Mail-order mifepristone, an abortion drug, violates the Administrative Procedure Act because the FDA removed the in-person dispensing requirement. The ADF case seeks to restore that requirement and, consequently, allow states to enforce their abortion laws, as outlined in Dobbs.
“In the state of Louisiana, which is a pro-life state, there are 800 to 900 abortions each month — but the number should actually be zero because it is a state with robust pro-life laws,” Baptist told the Washington Examiner. “All of its abortions come from mail-order abortion drugs. Louisiana now has more abortions per month than before the Dobbs decision.”
BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL: BLANCHE MUST STOP AMERICA’S ABORTION EPIDEMIC
ADF is working tirelessly to stop a policy that never should have existed in the first place. Supporting its effort to end mail-order abortion is the only way we can hope to build a future in which mothers such as Rosalie are protected from coercion and given the chance to keep their babies.
“Get abortion drugs out of the mail,” McIntyre told the Washington Examiner.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
