LAFAYETTE, La. – Twenty-one states, 60 members of Congress, and 58 pro-life organizations and advocates filed friend-of-the-court briefs Friday with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana in the case State of Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration in support of Louisiana and Rosalie Markezich. In the case, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for enabling pro-abortion activists and doctors to mail streams of high-risk abortion drugs into states that protect the lives of unborn babies.
In 2023, the Biden FDA permanently removed the in-person dispensing requirement from its Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy for the abortion drug mifepristone. This action intentionally enabled out-of-state pro-abortion activists and doctors to blanket states like Louisiana, which has chosen to protect unborn children, with mail-order abortion drugs, thus nullifying state laws and putting unborn babies and women at serious risk.
“The Biden FDA’s unlawful authorization of mail-order abortion drugs was meant to be a loophole around states that choose to protect life,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erik Baptist, senior counsel and director of the ADF Center for Life. “This was a reckless political action that destroys unborn life, puts women’s safety in serious jeopardy, and completely subverts state law. ADF is honored that more advocates for life are joining Louisiana to end this unlawful abortion-drug scheme and uphold the protection and dignity of every woman and child.”
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe and “return[ed] the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” allowing citizens and their elected representatives, including state governments, to enact and enforce laws based on their belief that abortion ends the life of a human being.
Louisiana was one such state. But the Biden administration’s FDA attempted to override the people’s choice—and undermine the court’s ruling in Dobbs—by permanently eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, thus authorizing mail-order abortions throughout the country.
“[T]he 2023 [policy] effectively permits New York and California doctors to superimpose their views on States like Louisiana, whose citizenry and electorate have charted a different path,” explained the brief from 21 states, led by Nebraska. “Under the 2023 [policy], a New York doctor can circumvent prolife States’ clear prohibitions on telehealth chemical abortions. That is a direct affront to States’ ‘sovereign interest.’”
Every year, doctors like Margaret Carpenter in New York mail mifepristone to thousands of Louisiana residents for the express purpose of causing abortions that are blatantly unlawful. The pro-abortion Society of Family Planning’s 2024 #WeCount report states that, from April to June 2024, mail-order abortion drugs—sent into Louisiana from out-of-state doctors—accounted for an average of 617 abortions in Louisiana per month. In December 2024, that number jumped to 800, and in 2025, it went even higher, nearing 1,000 abortions every month.
“The 2023 [policy] also opens the door for those who seek to coerce a woman into having an abortion because it removes the ability of a doctor to ensure a woman receiving chemical abortion drugs actually wishes to take them,” 60 members of Congress wrote in their brief. “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.”
That is the tragedy Rosalie Markezich suffered. In October 2023, under immense pressure and fearing for her safety, Rosalie took abortion drugs that her boyfriend obtained via mail from a doctor in California. Rosalie did not want an abortion, but far from empowering her to make her own choice and preserve her autonomy, the mail-order drugs left her feeling trapped and coerced. Abortion drugs killed her child.
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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