Catholics for Choice Responds to Louisiana v. FDA Decision to Pause Legal Attack on Telehealth Access to Abortion Medication for Now
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Contact: Lilian Medina Romero
Phone: (703) 688-2410
Email: lromero@catholicsforchoice.org
Catholics for Choice Responds to Louisiana v. FDA Decision to Pause Legal Attack on Telehealth Access to Abortion Medication for Now
WASHINGTON — Catholics for Choice, which serves the pro-choice Catholic majority, released the following statement from Steph Hanson-Quintana, Vice President of Organizing and Engagement, in response to U.S. District Judge David C. Joseph’s decision to grant the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a request to pause the case. At the same time, the agency will continue conducting its own review of the safety of mifepristone, a medication that is backed by decades of clinical research and has been available in the U.S. for over two decades:
“For the millions of people who rely on mifepristone to end a pregnancy or manage a miscarriage, the ruling on Louisiana v. FDA may feel confusing: A court has paused a case that threatened access to this medication, but it has not protected it.
“Make no mistake: This is not an isolated case. It is the result of a decades-long, well-funded Christian nationalist strategy to use courts, federal agencies, and religious institutional power to accomplish what the people have repeatedly refused to support.
“At Catholics for Choice, we are deeply concerned that the bishops — who do not represent the majority of Catholics supporting abortion access — are influencing the FDA’s politically motivated review of mifepristone. In a 2025 letter to the FDA copied to the White House Faith Office, the bishops call for the FDA to restore in-person medical consultations. The letter wields a study by the Ethics and Public Policy Center that has been widely criticized by medical experts for significant methodological flaws, contradicting well-documented scientific evidence about the safety of mifepristone.
“While we remain vigilant and committed to defending access to mifepristone and opposing religious overreach on reproductive rights, we want to remind those who need care that medication abortion is still safe, effective, and available through telehealth.
“We are hopeful that science will ultimately prevail. With more than 100 peer-reviewed studies documenting mifepristone’s safety, the scientific evidence is abundantly clear. What remains uncertain is whether the institutions responsible for safeguarding public health will be able to do their jobs without religious interference.”
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Catholics for Choice exists to amplify the voices of the pro-choice Catholic majority and counter Catholic institutional overreach around reproductive freedom.
