The battle over efforts to block the abortion pill from crossing state lines in violation of pro-life state laws raged on Tuesday as a federal judge in Louisiana rejected a lawsuit by Bayou State Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) allowance of the drug to be dispensed through the mail. The decision came amid a Senate Committee investigation into the safety of abortion pills manufactured overseas.

U.S. District Judge David Joseph granted the Trump administration’s request to put the case on hold but warned that it would not be an indefinite stay. He noted that the outcome of the case will depend on the results of the FDA’s current investigation into the safety of the mifepristone abortion pill and ordered the agency to notify him of the status of the inquiry within six months. “Should the agency fail to complete its review and make any necessary revisions [to the rules] within a reasonable time frame, the Court’s analysis — and the weight accorded to these factors — will inevitably change,” Joseph wrote. He went on to state that Louisiana is “likely to succeed on the merits.”

Under the Biden administration, the safety rules governing the dispensing of the abortion pill were rescinded, allowing the drug to be prescribed and dispensed remotely without the requirement of an in-person doctor’s visit to determine the gestational age of the unborn baby and to rule out the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy (which could lead to the death of the mother if the abortion pill is consumed). A recent study found that almost 11% of women who take the drug experience serious adverse health events, including “sepsis, infection, hemorrhage, need for blood transfusion, hospitalization, emergency room (ER) visits related to the abortion, need for a surgical abortion due to incomplete abortion, and other abortion-specific complications.”

The absence of safety regulations surrounding mifepristone has led to the proliferation of numerous online dispensaries of the deadly drug, a number of which sell the pill with no verification of a doctor’s prescription or of the gestational age of the unborn child (the FDA warns that the pill should not be taken past 10 weeks). As acknowledged by abortion pill dispensary site Plan C, most sellers peddle “generic formulations” of the drug “by manufacturers that are not certified or inspected by the FDA.” In the years since the Dobbs Supreme Court decision overturned Roe in 2022, abortions have increased due to the prevalence of mifepristone, and the drug now accounts for 65% of all abortions carried out in the U.S., with the pill commonly being sent illegally into states that have pro-life laws.

The situation has led Senate Republicans in the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions to launch an investigation into whether chemical abortion manufacturers are complying with FDA safety regulations.

“[T]here’s a whole lot of issues as regards these abortion drugs … and some of these are coming from overseas,” Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the committee, explained during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Tuesday. “They’re unregulated. We don’t know the chemical content. We don’t know if they’re safe. Of course, we know if they have their intended effect that the child dies, but we also want to protect the mother, and right now we’re not sure that is happening. And so … we’ll begin our investigation … to make sure that these unregulated drugs not prescribed by a doctor come in overseas, that the FDA is looking after this.”

Cassidy, a former physician who spent over 25 years working as a gastroenterologist, went on to express disappointment that the Trump administration has not taken action to reestablish safety protocols surrounding mifepristone and has even allowed the drug’s expansion.

“This FDA has turned a blind eye to issues that are important to those who are pro-life … approving generic abortion drugs without the requirement to have the REMS database that’s looking for complications,” he pointed out. “There’s evidence that the way women are taking these pills now has an increased rate of complications that should be thoroughly investigated. It has not been thoroughly investigated, and that’s what I’m pushing the FDA to do now.”

The senator further highlighted how the lack of safety regulations surrounding the pill is leading to women being coerced into taking it. “When you [dispense] it online, somebody in California is prescribing a medication for someone in Louisiana — the patient [who] didn’t request it. The mother did, and the mother is coercing … her child who’s pregnant to take the pill.”

Cassidy continued, “There’s a case in one of our parishes in which the daughter wanted to have a gender reveal party. The mother coerced her into taking the pills. She ended up in the emergency room with complication because she was an inappropriate candidate for these medications. Now that is wrong. An in-person visit would allow a doctor to say, ‘Wait, are you being coerced? If you’re coerced, I’m not going to give you medicine. In fact, I’ll call the police because you shouldn’t be taking this unless you know the complication which is going to occur.’ That’s what we’re trying to inform people, and that’s why the FDA should be taking a more aggressive action on it.”

Cassidy further emphasized that anyone can obtain abortion drugs online, regardless of their intent. “[If there’s] somebody buying online, like John Smith, [then] wait a second, that should be a red flag. It’s not Susan Smith, it’s John Smith. John Smith gets it, gives it to the wife when she’s 20 weeks pregnant. At this point, the fetus can be too large to pass out of the womb. … [O]nce the fetus is dead, it stays in the womb. That leads to a complication. That complication leads to an ER visit and other complications like infection or sepsis. … This is wrong. This is endangering the life of the mother.”

Cassidy concluded by noting that the FDA has so far not responded to the Committee’s inquiry regarding mifepristone manufacturing. “Why are these international companies not being regulated as they ship drugs into our country, which [the] FDA should be cracking down on … particularly when the design of the drug is to kill the fetus, but in some cases it damages the mother. And that’s assuming that they’re pure and otherwise not adulterated. It’s an important issue for us to look at.”