Ƶ Files Lawsuit to Demand Transparency from the FDA in Its Review of Medication Abortion Regulations

Affiliate: Ƶ of Maryland
November 14, 2025 10:15 am

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WASHINGTON — The Ƶ (Ƶ) 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 U.S. abortions. The lawsuit seeks to enforce the Ƶ’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 Ƶ’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 Ƶ. “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 This paper — which is not peer reviewed and is only six pages long — has been for its lack of transparency and gravely flawed methodology.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 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 Ƶ’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 Ƶ’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.

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