Josh Hawley’s Wife Asks Judge to Immediately Restrict Abortion Pills Nationwide

Sen. Josh Hawley and his ultraconservative lawyer wife Erin are having a busy December. The Missouri lawmaker is feuding with the head of the Food and Drug Administration for not restricting abortion pills fast enough, which apparently prompted them to launch a new anti-abortion organization because they think people in power should be trying harder to force women and girls into childbirth.

Then on Wednesday, Erin, a lawyer at the Christian nationalist law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, asked a federal judge to immediately end telemedicine prescriptions of the abortion drug mifepristone while an ADF lawsuit plays out. If the Trump-appointed judge, David Joseph, agrees, it could impact abortion access nationwide—including in states with protective laws.

Joseph was confirmed to his seat in 2020. Earlier this year, Joseph struck down Biden-era rules requiring employers to offer unpaid time off for people to access abortion care under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

Erin is currently representing the state of Louisiana in a lawsuit against the FDA, claiming that the agency acted unlawfully when, in 2023, it permanently allowed mifepristone to be sent to patients in the mail. That change meant people no longer had to visit a clinician in person for medication abortion and—alongside shield laws protecting providers who send pills across state lines—it has led to an explosion in the number of telemedicine abortions. In the first six months of 2025, 27% of all abortions were done via telehealth, up from 5% in early 2022, according to the Society of Family Planning. (Mifepristone is typically prescribed alongside another drug, misoprostol, and the regimen is also used to manage miscarriages.)

Louisiana first sued the government in early October, arguing that the availability of abortion pills by telemedicine interferes with the state’s ability to enforce its abortion ban. Essentially, pills by mail means Louisiana residents can still get abortions without traveling. The FDA had not even responded to the state’s initial complaint, nor had the judge even scheduled a hearing, when Hawley and ADF filed a motion asking the judge to set aside the 2023 FDA changes that allowed doctors to dispense mifepristone remotely for the duration of the litigation.

NEW: Louisiana and lawyer Erin Hawley of ADF just asked a federal judge to IMMEDIATELY end telemedicine prescriptions of the abortion drug mifepristone while their lawsuit against the FDA proceeds. They cite Fifth Circuit opinion and the Comstock Act of 1873storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us…

— Susan Rinkunas (@susanrinkunas.com) 2025-12-17T21:46:58.143Z

To try to justify the request, the motion cites the fact that multiple judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said the telehealth changes violated a federal law known as the Administrative Procedure Act.

ADF also claims that allowing mifepristone to be mailed violates the Comstock Act of 1873, a dormant anti-obscenity law it’s been trying to revive and weaponize as a nationwide abortion ban since fall 2022 after the end of Roe v. Wade. Comstock says it’s illegal to mail abortifacients, though it hasn’t been enforced against abortion in nearly 100 years. ADF tried and failed to resuscitate the 19th-century law with a lawsuit filed by anti-abortion doctors that the Supreme Court rejected on procedural grounds in June 2024. A Democratic-led effort to repeal the abortion-related provisions in 2024 went nowhere. The bill didn’t even get a hearing.

To support its motion to end telemedicine for abortion pills, Louisiana filed several exhibits, including the aforementioned abortion data from the Society of Family Planning, and reporting from Bloomberg that FDA commissioner Marty Makary is slow-walking a (completely unnecessary) safety “review” of mifepristone until after the 2026 midterms. Even if the administration appears to be dragging its feet on restricting access to abortion, the Trumpified federal courts are an active threat. The Hawleys, both of whom are former Supreme Court clerks, know this fact quite well.

Joseph will hold what’s known as a status conference on Friday morning to determine deadlines for the FDA to file a reply brief to Louisiana’s motion. He could issue an order after the Trump administration files its response. We should note that in ADF’s previous attempt to restrict abortion pills, the district judge who sided with them paused his wild order for one week to allow for appeals—that order from Trump-appointed judge Matthew Kacsmaryk never took effect.

At least for now, nothing has changed, and abortion pills are still available by mail in all 50 states and U.S. territories. The organization Plan C has more information. If you’ve been thinking about getting some and are financially able, consider this a sign.

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