Hawley Presses Blanche on Why Trump's DOJ Is Fighting Republican States Over Mail-Order Abortion Pills

Since Todd Blanche's July 15 confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, pressure from Senate Republicans and pro-life advocacy groups to force his hand on the mail-order abortion pill fight has only intensified.

At the center of it is Louisiana v. FDA, a lawsuit now before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that challenges a Biden-era rule eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, the chemical abortion drug. Louisiana and other states argue the rule let abortion pills be mailed to women with no doctor visit required. The Trump Justice Department, currently led on an acting basis by Blanche, has asked the court to pause that litigation while the FDA runs a safety review of the drug, a review the agency announced in June and says it will complete in under a year.

That posture, pausing rather than reversing, is what's drawing fire from Blanche's own party.

Hawley's Question, and Blanche's Answer

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Blanche directly he didn't like where things stood. "I hate it that we have these Republican states in court against a Republican administration," Hawley said at the hearing, according to the Daily Signal. Hawley noted Missouri has its own laws restricting chemical abortion drugs and requiring an in-person physician visit, and said there has to be "some solution" to the standoff.

Blanche's response drew a line between opposing the states' case procedurally and defending the substance of Biden's policy. "I share your concerns as this entire administration, as you know, we have the most pro-life president in history, and you are one of the most pro-life senators in this body," Blanche said, according to the Daily Signal's transcript of the exchange. "I don't want to talk about litigation strategy here, it is not appropriate, but I will say, as we've said in our briefing, we are not defending what Biden did, and will not."

He added that the FDA's safety review "takes a year" but that the agency has "committed to do it significantly less time than a year," and said the administration will "protect the life of the unborn" and work with states to do so.

Blanche is arguing DOJ isn't defending the Biden rule as correct, only that DOJ wants the court to wait for the FDA review before it rules. Critics say that distinction doesn't matter if women keep getting hurt while the clock runs.

The Cornyn-Tillis Letter

Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) sent Blanche a letter ahead of the hearing pushing a specific fix: a court-ordered consent decree that would end the mail-order policy immediately, restoring in-person dispensing while the FDA review continues, rather than waiting on the review's outcome.

"We write to express our growing concern that the Department of Justice has not acted to stop the abortion industry's unlawful and unsafe mail-order abortion drug practice," the senators wrote. They argued DOJ has the power right now to resolve the Fifth Circuit case "by agreeing to a consent decree under the supervision of the court."

Cornyn and Tillis also made a numbers argument: four years after Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe v. Wade, they wrote, the number of abortions nationally has risen, not fallen, which they attribute largely to the expansion of mail-order chemical abortion. "With every day that passes, more lives are at risk and are lost because of this harmful policy. DOJ can and must act," the letter concluded.

The Personal Cases Driving the Pressure

A July 8 letter organized ahead of the hearing and signed by 14 people describing themselves as abortion drug victims, including Abby Johnson and Sara Huff, urged Blanche to side with Rosalie Markezich, a Louisiana woman and plaintiff in the case who says her boyfriend coerced her into taking mifepristone and misoprostol in 2023 after ordering them online using her name and address, according to the Washington Stand.

Markezich, in an account provided through her attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, said she bled for hours afterward and that "if the Biden FDA had not removed in-person dispensing, my then-boyfriend would not have been able to obtain abortion drugs and pressure me to take them against my will." Separately, Catherine Herring has said her husband repeatedly attempted to induce a chemical abortion by lacing her food and drink with mifepristone without her knowledge, a case the Washington Stand cited as part of a pattern of coerced or nonconsensual chemical abortion tied to mail-order access.

These accounts describe alleged criminal coercion by individuals, not a defect proven to be inherent in the FDA's mail-order rule itself, and no criminal charges connected to the Markezich or Herring cases were detailed in the available record here. The pro-life groups pressing DOJ argue the mail-order system's lack of in-person verification is precisely what makes coercion and impersonation easier to pull off and harder to catch. That is the core policy argument: removing a doctor visit removes a checkpoint where coercion, abuse, or a fake identity might otherwise be caught. Supporters of telehealth abortion access, not represented in these letters, would counter that in-person requirements delay care and burden women in states with few providers, though that argument doesn't appear in the sourced material here.

Blanche's testimony does not indicate DOJ has agreed to a consent decree. Whether Cornyn, Tillis, and Hawley get the immediate court order they're asking for, or whether the fight waits on the FDA's safety review, is still unresolved as of this writing.