The Food and Drug Administration has projected a March deadline to release its long-awaited review of the safety of the abortion pill. A court document says the FDA “plans to compare mifepristone’s safety to that of surgical abortions through 10 weeks’ gestation,” according to NBC News, which said the FDA’s “review will measure the frequency of side effects among roughly 100,000 women who took mifepristone.”

This timeline, five months away, did not impress pro-life advocates. “The administration continues to find itself on the wrong side of women’s health, clearly uninterested in mitigating the ongoing harms caused by the abortion pill,” said Gavin Oxley, a spokesman for Americans United for Life.

Six pro-life states are now suing the FDA over the abortion pill, which is the most widely used abortion method in the United States today. Louisiana, for example, is challenging the FDA over abortion pill distribution via telehealth, arguing that the unrestricted distribution of mifepristone from out of state into Louisiana undermines the pro-life state’s laws.

The abortion pill has been legal for some time, but it’s now more popular than ever. In 2000, the FDA approved the two-drug prescription of mifepristone and misoprostol for abortion. During the pandemic, the Biden FDA lifted restrictions requiring in-person dispensing by an authorized provider. No one, including the Trump administration, has reintroduced these commonsense guardrails around the method for more than 60% of all abortions today.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, allowing the states to decide the issue individually, Louisiana has implemented heavy restrictions on abortion, essentially banning it from the state. In 2024, Louisiana passed a law classifying mifepristone as a controlled dangerous substance. These pills are not just harmful to mothers and babies; they’re also easily abused. Louisiana resident Rosalie Markezich, who is a co-plaintiff in the case against the FDA, says she was pressured by her boyfriend into taking the pills.

Nonetheless, out-of-state providers have been supplying the drug to Louisiana residents using shield laws that protect the provider, even though the user is in the abortion-restricted state. Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga suggested that possibly half of the women who seek care for complications after the medication use state-funded Medicaid, which draws the authority of the shield laws into question since in these cases it is not only the provider and user dealing with the effects.

A federal appeals court is currently reviewing the case to decide if the state of Louisiana has the legal standing to challenge the FDA’s lax restrictions on the abortion drug. While this case plays out, abortion drugs are still easily accessible online. If the courts decide in favor of Louisiana, then restrictions on the drug could be national, ensuring better care and protection for women and the unborn in all states, as well as the sovereignty of states that have taken action in making laws to protect the unborn.