Skip to content
Main Menu
Utah Attorney General
Search
Attorney General
Sean D. Reyes
Utah Office of the Attorney General
Secondary Navigation

AG Reyes Court to Protect Democracy and Women’s Health

April 12, 2023

Today, Utah Attorney General Sean. D. Reyes filed an amicus brief, along with 18 other Attorneys General, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

In the brief, the Attorneys General argue that the Biden Administration and the FDA’s attempt to roll back safety mechanisms for the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone and to make it widely available through the mail violates both federal law and state laws. Current federal criminal law plainly prohibits the distribution of abortion-inducing drugs through the mail.  (18 U.S.C. § § 1461, 1462) 

Last week, Texas District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk stated, “The Court does not second-guess FDA’s decision-making lightly. But here, FDA acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns — in violation of its statutory duty — based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions.”

In the brief, the Attorneys General write, “Rather than respect the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the democratic process, the Biden Administration and its FDA has attacked and worked to undermine the considered judgments of the elected representatives of States. The Biden Administration has, following Dobbs, doubled down on its efforts to impose on the country an elective-abortion policy that it could never achieve through the democratic process.…”

The brief concludes, “The serious nature of the FDA’s unlawful actions, and the agency’s decision to invite lawbreaking by private parties and government actors across the country, favors the relief the district court ordered…The district court’s decisive action was warranted. And this Court’s is too. This Court should deny any stay relief.”

Attorneys General from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming joined Attorney General Reyes on this brief. 

Read the brief here.