JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – On Monday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced that his office filed suit against Joe Biden’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Health and Senior Services for unlawfully approving the shipment of chemical abortion pills in the mail. This suit comes after General Bailey led a 20-state coalition in putting pharmacies on notice that to follow the FDA’s guidance would be unlawful.
“Unelected federal bureaucrats do not have the statutory authority to approve the shipment of these dangerous chemical abortion drugs in the mail,” said Attorney General Bailey. “The FDA’s guidance is not only unlawful, but would cost the lives of both women and their unborn children. I am proud to be leading a coalition of states to halt the FDA’s illegal federal overreach in its tracks.”
In the lawsuit, Attorney General Bailey asserts that, “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the statutory responsibility to protect the health, safety, and welfare of all Americans by rejecting or limiting the use of drugs dangerous to the public. The FDA has failed in this responsibility. Specifically, it failed America’s women and girls when it chose politics over science and approved risky, untested chemical abortion drugs for use in the United States. And it has continued to fail them by turning a blind eye to these harms and repeatedly removing even the most basic precautionary requirements associated with the use of these risky drugs.”
Specifically, Missouri’s lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction against the:
(1) 2016 rollback of most of the safety precautions FDA had put in place when it approved mifepristone in 2000;
(2) 2019 FDA approval of generic mifepristone; and
(3) 2021 and 2023 policy allowing these drugs to be sent by mail.
Missouri is joined in filing the lawsuit by Idaho and Kansas. Missouri has requested that the Court combine this complaint with the existing lawsuit over the same matter brought by doctors across the country, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA.
The lawsuit can be read here: https://ago.mo.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023.11.3-Missouri-v.-FDA-Master-Complaint.pdf