In February Americans United joined more than 100 reproductive rights, civil rights, and religious and other social justice organizations to urge the U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana to protect nationwide access to the abortion medication mifepristone. In the amicus brief filed in Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, AU and allies urged the court to reject a challenge brought by the state of Louisiana and the Christian Nationalist organization Alliance Defending Freedom to overturn the FDA’s 2023 decision to allow mifepristone to be distributed by mail and retail pharmacies.
In the brief, AU and allies stressed the overwhelming evidence of mifepristone’s safety, including when provided through telemedicine; the importance of medication abortion to people’s health; and how the reinstatement of the in-person dispensing requirement would disproportionately impact communities already facing barriers to care, including Black, brown, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ people.
“The right to abortion is a fundamental freedom that is essential to our health, equality and our moral and religious beliefs,” said AU President and CEO Rachel Laser. “The lawsuit exposes the Christian Nationalist agenda and group — Alliance Defending Freedom — behind the lawsuit from its very first words: ‘The fight for life is far from over.’ Abortion bans violate the separation of church and state by enshrining one narrow religious viewpoint into law.
“If America is to make good on its promise of religious freedom, each of us must be free to make our own decisions about our own bodies based on our own beliefs,” Laser added. “We need a national recommitment to the separation of church and state to safeguard reproductive freedom for everyone.”