National Condom Week

WASHINGTON — Today, the states of Florida and Texas filed a new lawsuit in federal court in Texas seeking to end all nationwide access to mifepristone, a safe and effective medication used in two-thirds of U.S. abortions and as part of a gold-standard regimen for miscarriage care. The new lawsuit, Florida v. FDA, seeks to undo every FDA policy decision on mifepristone going back to the medication’s original approval 25 years ago. Florida v. FDA is one of three pending federal lawsuits attacking mifepristone. The other two, Missouri v. FDA and Louisiana v. FDA, seek to severely restrict medication abortion access nationwide by, among other things, banning the use of telemedicine and pharmacies for mifepristone — forcing every patient to travel to pick up their prescription in person at a health center, which may be hundreds of miles away. Recent data show that, by June 2025, more than 1 in 4 U.S. abortions were provided via telemedicine using mifepristone. “These lawsuits have nothing to do with the safety of this medication and everything to do with making it harder for people to get an abortion,” said Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project. “Politicians in Texas and Florida are asking for a nationwide ban on a safe and effective medication that millions of Americans have used since the FDA first approved it 25 years ago. Anyone who believes that our access to essential medicines should be based on science, not political ideology, should be disgusted by these legal attacks.” Mifepristone’s excellent safety record has been confirmed by more than a hundred peer-reviewed studies and leading medical authorities like the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Florida and Texas’s new lawsuit comes as the Trump administration appears to be gearing up to make it even harder for people to access the medication nationwide. Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced that the FDA is conducting a new review of its mifepristone regulations prompted by a report from a Project 2025 sponsor that purposefully distorts the safety record of medication abortion. This paper is a six-page, non-peer-reviewed document that has been denounced by more than 260 expert researchers for its lack of transparency and gravely flawed methodology. Nevertheless, in a letter to anti-abortion state attorneys general on Sept. 19, 2025, Secretary Kennedy doubled down on the publication’s importance, citing this propaganda as a “recent stud[y] raising concerns about the safety of mifepristone as currently administered.” Secretary Kennedy also stated that the FDA’s “policy changes will ultimately go through the White House, through President Trump.” Polling consistently shows that American voters support access to abortion, including medication abortion via mail and telemedicine. At the same time, voters worry that access to abortion remains under threat: a June 2025 poll by Navigator Research showed that nearly seven in ten voters believe abortion will be harder to access in the next five years.

WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit yesterday to compel the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to disclose records related to the agency’s review of its regulations on mifepristone, a medication used in most U.S. abortions. The lawsuit seeks to enforce the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, filed in August, which seeks information about the scope of the review along with any communications between the FDA and anti-abortion organizations, state and federal officials, and politicians requesting greater restrictions on medication abortion. The FDA has yet to respond to the ACLU’s FOIA request or to similar requests filed by other organizations, leaving the public in the dark about steps the agency appears to be taking towards making medication abortion harder to access. “The people of this country deserve to know whether the Food and Drug Administration is following the science on medication abortion or simply following the whims of anti-abortion ,” said Rachel Reeves, staff attorney with the Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. “We demand transparency from the Trump administration and its anti-abortion allies, because this threat to our reproductive freedom cannot continue in secrecy.” Alarming statements from Trump administration officials, including FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, have indicated that the review centers upon a deeply flawed paper, written by a Project 2025 cosponsor, that purposefully distorts the excellent safety record of medication abortion. This paper — which is not peer reviewed and is only six pages long — has been denounced by more than 260 expert researchers for its lack of transparency and gravely flawed methodology. Anti-abortion politicians are nevertheless using this paper to push for medically unnecessary restrictions, including limits on telemedicine for abortion. Today, 1 in 4 U.S. abortion patients use to safely have a medication abortion after consulting with a health care provider access to abortion will be further out of reach for patients across the nation. The FOIA request and complaint are just the latest in the ACLU’s efforts to protect and expand access to medication abortion. For instance, even as the Trump administration lays the groundwork to make mifepristone harder to access, a federal district court ruled in October in the ACLU’s longstanding case Purcell v. Kennedy that the FDA has failed to justify its current heavy restrictions on mifepristone, which already go far beyond what FDA imposes on the vast majority of medications. That recent decision prohibits the FDA from ignoring the wealth of peer-reviewed evidence on mifepristone’s safety and how the FDA’s restrictions burden patient access in conducting its new review.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit to compel the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to disclose records related to the agency’s review of its regulations on mifepristone, a medication used in most U.S. abortions. The lawsuit seeks to enforce the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, filed in August 2025, which seeks information about the scope of the review along with any communications between the FDA and anti-abortion organizations, state and federal officials, and politicians requesting greater restrictions on medication abortion.

HONOLULU — Today, a federal district court ruled that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) imposition of medically unnecessary restrictions on the medication abortion pill mifepristone violated federal law. While this ruling does not change patients’ ability to access medication abortion in the near term, it affirms the FDA’s legal obligation to consider the overwhelming evidence of mifepristone’s safety and not to impose restrictions that unduly burden patient access to this essential medication. The court's finding that the agency failed to justify its restrictions on access to mifepristone comes as the Trump administration appears to be gearing up to make it even harder for people to get the medication nationwide. Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced that the FDA is conducting a new review of its mifepristone regulations. Secretary Kennedy has indicated that the review centers on a junk science paper, issued by a Project 2025 sponsor, that purposefully distorts the excellent safety record of medication abortion. This paper is a six-page, non-peer-reviewed document that has been denounced by more than 260 expert researchers for its lack of transparency and gravely flawed methodology. Nevertheless, in a letter to anti-abortion state attorneys general on Sept. 19, 2025, Secretary Kennedy doubled down on the publication’s importance, citing this propaganda as a “recent stud[y] raising concerns about the safety of mifepristone as currently administered.” Under today’s ruling, the FDA will need to consider the wealth of peer-reviewed evidence proving mifepristone’s safety, including when delivered by telemedicine, as well as how FDA’s restrictions burden patient access. “Today’s decision is a victory for everyone who believes that our access to safe and essential medicines should be dictated by science, not politics,” said Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “Despite decades of real-world experience and mountains of evidence proving mifepristone’s safety, the FDA regulates this medication more heavily than 99 percent of prescription drugs. Now, Secretary Kennedy is using more junk science to lay the groundwork for making it even harder to get a medication abortion. Today’s decision is a crucial reminder that the courts and the medical community won’t sit by while the Trump administration trashes our healthcare and our reproductive freedoms.” “I am pleased the Court recognized that the FDA’s extreme restrictions on mifepristone are not grounded in logic or science. But while this decision should be a call to action for FDA to finally lift its medically unjustified restrictions on medication abortion, I fear the Trump Administration is gearing up to make things worse,” said Heidi Purcell, M.D. “In the Hawaiian islands, where patients may live a flight away from the nearest provider, losing a telemedicine option for mifepristone would be devastating. The FDA should be working to ensure that patients in rural and underserved areas like Hawaii can access essential medications, not throwing up needless barriers to care.” “Today’s decision is a win for science, and reinforces what decades of research has shown -- there is no credible evidence to justify the current burdensome regulations on mifepristone,” said Amanda Dennis, DrPH, MBE, executive director, Society of Family Planning. “As the anti-abortion movement’s strategy of co-opting science to advance medication abortion restrictions intensifies, today’s ruling is a crucial reminder that healthcare policy must be informed by evidence, not ideology.” “As front-line physicians who provide preventive and primary care for the whole family, family physicians fight for patient access to safe and effective treatments,” said Lisa Folberg, MPP, chief executive officer of the California Academy of Family Physicians. “The FDA's needless restrictions on mifepristone make our jobs harder without any safety benefit. We appreciate that the court recognized how FDA failed to consider the toll its restrictions take on physicians trying to provide a safe and effective medication to their patients. For eight years, CAFP has been in court fighting for an FDA policy on medication abortion grounded in science, not politics or stigma. This decision is a step in the right direction.” For over a decade, medical authorities and reproductive health experts have advocated for lifting the FDA’s medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone. The American Civil Liberties Union first filed this case, Purcell v. Kennedy (formerly Chelius v. Becerra) on behalf of preeminent health care associations and an individual family medicine doctor in 2017. In 2021, this litigation prompted the FDA to reconsider its in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone in light of the significant evidence that mifepristone is just as safe when dispensed through a pharmacy and that the in-person requirement severely burdened patient access. While the FDA suspended and then formally eliminated its telemedicine restrictions for mifepristone, it continued to single out mifepristone prescribers, pharmacists, and patients with medically unnecessary restrictions that severely limit patients’ ability to access medication abortion. Indeed, despite abortion opponents’ attempts to paint the FDA as inadequately restrictive, the evidence in this case showed that the FDA already regulates mifepristone more heavily than 99 percent of prescription medications. If the FDA’s mifepristone regulations are made more stringent, whether through court order or Trump administration policy changes, access to abortion will be further out of reach for patients across the nation.