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# FDA Mifepristone Restrictions are Legal: Judge
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/fda-mifepristone-restrictions-are-legal-judge/
- Published: 2025-07-09T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T15:16:07.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5159477

A Washington state federal judge has reversed his earlier injunction and determined that FDA legally restricted the availability of mifepristone and misoprostol, used in combination for a chemical abortion. Courthouse News Service [reports](https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-revokes-fda-injunction-allowing-abortion-pill-access/?ref=fdaweb.com) that Washington, Oregon, and 15 other blue states plus Washington, DC, had sued to maintain access to the drugs, arguing that FDA’s decision to remove an in-person dispensing requirement and to add a pharmacy certification requirement under a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) placed undue burdens on the states’ doctors, pharmacies, and patients by making the drugs harder to access and more dangerous for those traveling from states that have outlawed abortion.

“Now that the court has a full record,” wrote judge **Thomas Rice**, “it is not the court’s role to review the scientific evidence and decide whether mifepristone’s benefits outweigh its risks…. That is precisely FDA’s role. It appears FDA fully considered the important aspect of the issues in this case and came to a reasonable conclusion. The court cannot find, based on the full record before it, that FDA was arbitrary and capricious in its decision.”

Rice granted summary judgment to FDA and denied the states’ request for summary judgment. He held that the agency correctly analyzed research on mifepristone and determined that it qualified for a REMS to consider if a drug’s benefits outweigh its risks.