DOJ Quietly Pleads With Another State to STFU About Its Anti-Abortion Agenda

For the second time this year, the Trump administration is asking a federal court to pause or dismiss a lawsuit that targets the abortion pill mifepristone—this time in Missouri.

On Friday, the DOJ quietly targeted a lawsuit against the FDA that the state filed in October, asking that it give the agency time to conduct its own review into mifepristone—aka, please wait until the midterms are over so us Republicans have a chance at hanging on to our teetering trifecta. This could explain why the anti-abortion Slenderman, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), introduced his own bill into the Senate on Wednesday to outright ban the abortion pill—and why he may soon find himself in a 19th-century duel. (Your move, senator.)

Missouri AG Catherine Hanaway (R)—along with AGs Kris Kobach (R-Kansas) and Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho)—filed the lawsuit in October, demanding the FDA roll back its approval from 10 weeks to seven, and ban it from being prescribed over telehealth. In November, they added an amended complaint, with Hanaway claiming that mail-order abortion drugs are “dangerous” without an in-person prescription. 

“Given this widespread debate over the safety of mifepristone, FDA has concluded that the best path forward is for the agency to undertake its review based on all the evidence before the agency,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in their filing, saying that the various lawsuits would make things confusing. “FDA has emphasized that it ‘is taking care to do this study properly and in the right way.’” 

The DOJ did the same thing in January, when they filed a request for Louisiana to pause its lawsuit against the FDA over mifepristone. The state’s AG Liz Murrill (R) ignored them, telling reporters after the hearing that the abortion pill is the same as guns and fentanyl. 

And as much as we’d love for the nation’s main public health entity to be “taking care to do studies properly,” we know basically nothing of this ongoing and so-called “review,” or even if it actually exists. After Hawley spent the summer amplifying a bogus “study” from the far-right Ethics & Public Policy Center to the high heavens, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said in September that the agency would re-review the pill. Then, in December, Bloomberg reported that Makary was dragging his feet until after the midterms, as the GOP is freaking out over its shrinking advantage in Washington, made worse after Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) defected to the Independent Party, leaving the GOP with a 217-214 majority in the House. (It has a 53-45 majority in the Senate.)

OK, I will admit that I have not done any historical review here, but it is wild to me that DOJ is filing a motion to stay and — alternatively — to dismiss the case altogether for three independent reasons. And yet, in the unending mifepristone challenge (now in Missouri), that’s what DOJ did today.

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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) March 6, 2026 at 9:49 PM

Amid all this, a JAMA study in January reiterated that yes, the 10+ years of research deeming the abortion pill safe and effective was determined based on actual science, not politics like Hawley and the GOP keep suggesting. “That’s how it’s supposed to be,” one of the co-authors wrote. 

Hanaway has not yet commented on the DOJ’s request. I just hope we don’t have to sit through another abortion-pills-are-like-fentanyl-and-guns news cycle. 

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