US president Donald Trump administration on Monday 5, 2025, asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to sharply restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone.
The court filing by the Justice Department is striking, given that Trump and a number of officials in his administration have forcefully opposed abortion rights.
The filing is the first time the Trump administration has weighed in on the lawsuit, which seeks to reverse numerous regulatory changes that the Food and Drug Administration made over the past decade that greatly expanded access to mifepristone.
The request makes no mention of the merits of the case, which have not yet been considered by the courts but echoes the argument that the Biden administration made shortly before Mr. Trump took office, the court filing asserts that the case does not meet the legal standard to be heard in the federal district court in which it was filed.
The case
The case was filed by the conservative attorneys general of three states — Missouri, Idaho, and Kansas — before Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
“The states do not dispute that their claims have no connection to the Northern District of Texas. Regardless of the merits of the states’ claims, the states cannot proceed in this court,” the Justice Department lawyers wrote in the filing.
Mr. Trump’s political calculus on abortion has changed since his first term. Although Republicans prevailed in the 2024 elections, so did abortion rights, with ballot measures to protect abortion access winning in several conservative states, including Missouri.
Voters in Kansas, one of the other plaintiffs in the case, endorsed abortion rights in 2022, a year when Democrats made strong gains in Congress partly because of a backlash against Republicans over abortion.
During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump tried to adjust to the changing political winds on the issue, sometimes taking positions that frustrated social conservatives.
Mifepristone
The typical medication abortion regimen involves mifepristone, which blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy development, followed 24 to 48 hours later by misoprostol, which causes contractions similar to those during a miscarriage.
Mifepristone was approved for abortion 25 years ago. Misoprostol, which has long been widely available for several medical conditions, can terminate a pregnancy on its own, but the lawsuit does not seek any restrictions on misoprostol.
Decades of research has found the pills to be safe, and serious complications rare.
