Texas and Florida’s attorneys general could soon put the Trump administration in an awkward position over a Biden-era abortion pill case, if a federal judge allows the states to join the lawsuit.
The Supreme Court last year unanimously dismissed the original lawsuit brought by a coalition of anti-abortion groups known as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine because it lacked standing and sent the case back to the lower courts. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the coalition’s opposition to abortion pills did not amount to actual harm. AHM then dropped the lawsuit, and three GOP-led states — Missouri, Kansas and Idaho — took it over.
The Trump administration, which inherited the case from the Biden administration, has been defending mifepristone only on procedural grounds, arguing that the three states’ lawsuit cannot continue because none of them is located where the court presiding over the case is: Texas.
But now the attorneys general of Texas and Florida, Ken Paxton and James Uthmeier, are entering the fray.
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“It fixes the venue question, plain and simple,” Steven Aden, chief legal officer and general counsel for the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life, which is not involved in the lawsuit, told NOTUS. “The weakness of the venue case for [Missouri, Idaho and Kansas], obviously, was that none of them was Texas.”
Texas and Florida’s attorneys general are arguing that they must be involved in the lawsuit because their interests “may no longer be adequately represented” by the current plaintiffs. Missouri now protects abortion rights in its Constitution, and abortion rights activists in Idaho are beginning the process of adding an abortion rights constitutional amendment to the state’s ballot in 2026.
The Trump administration, the defendant in the case, cannot drop or withdraw from the lawsuit. That there are other defendants in the case — two abortion pill manufacturers — makes it much less likely that the administration could enter a settlement with the plaintiff states to quickly end the case.
Texas and Florida’s potential involvement puts the Trump administration in a difficult position: having to defend a drug that the federal government has avoided taking a clear position on. Mifepristone is endorsed and considered safe and effective by major medical organizations. But Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has cast doubt on its safety and recently said the Food and Drug Administration will review the drug. A formal review would likely be the only way for the administration to get out of the case.
“It’s a political football,” Aden told NOTUS. “I think they’re looking at what HHS is doing with regard to the labeling of mifepristone, and politically, they believe that what HHS does will be sufficient to mollify the conservative movement and the pro-life faction.”
“I think that’s their political calculus, and that’s why they filed the motion initially to have the suit dismissed from Texas, because I don’t think they want to play on this field. They may have no choice now,” he continued.
The Trump administration is expected to challenge Texas and Florida’s motion to intervene, and a response is due in mid-October. The Justice Department did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment on the filing and what that means for its defense moving forward.
If allowed to intervene, Texas and Florida plan to ask the court to get rid of the FDA’s approval of mifepristone — using an Ethics and Public Policy Center report on abortion pills to argue that the drug is dangerous — and to enforce the Comstock Act, an 1873 federal law that prohibits the shipment of “every article or thing designed, adapted or intended for producing abortion.” Democrats in Congress have introduced largely symbolic legislation to repeal the statute.
Anti-abortion advocates have been fighting to keep the case in Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s jurisdiction, given his history of being friendly with the anti-abortion movement. In 2023, he ordered the FDA to withdraw its approval of mifepristone, effectively banning it. When the Supreme Court dismissed the case, Kacsmaryk’s order no longer applied.
“I am confident that Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, as a sensible judge, is going to rule rightly in this case. He is not bought by the abortion industry,” said Mark Lee Dickson, a prominent anti-abortion advocate in Texas who worked with conservative lawyer Jonathan Mitchell to find a plaintiff for the case located in Texas. Mitchell did not respond to NOTUS’ requests for an interview.
Kacsmaryk “is a judge that really does judge righteously, and I believe that this case is in good hands,” Dickson continued.
Texas officials, in particular, have taken actions to ensure that their state is the perfect plaintiff in the case: The legislature passed a bill allowing private citizens to sue anyone who mails abortion pills into the state, and the state has been pursuing charges against abortion pill providers who live in states that protect abortion rights.
This makes it more likely that Kacsmaryk will allow Texas and Florida to intervene in the case.
“Sometimes other states beat us to the punch, but when we show up on the field, we get things done,” Dickson told NOTUS. “Texas and Florida are in this to end abortion pills once and for all.”
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