Tesla’s troubles are stacking up like traffic on the 405 during a power outage. Between falling sales, public backlash, and a growing list of lawsuits including one in France over Musk’s antics, the electric automaker finds itself in yet another international legal mess. This time, it’s not just the usual social media outcry or a shareholder spat, but a pair of class actions in Australia, with customers calling out everything from phantom braking to misleading marketing.

We first reported on the lawsuit back in February, and new developments show it has officially made its way into the Federal Court. Around 10,000 Tesla owners in Australia have now joined the class action, suggesting that concerns about the vehicles are far from isolated.

Read: Tesla Sued In Australia For Overpromising Range, Phantom Braking, Misleading FSD

The lawsuit, brought by law firm JDA Saddler, claims that Tesla vehicles have a troubling tendency to slam on the brakes without warning. One owner told ABC News his car abruptly slowed down while he was driving on a major highway, an experience that’s becoming all too familiar among Tesla drivers.

Rebecca Jancauskas of JDA Saddler says the firm has received numerous reports of vehicles braking suddenly while traveling at highway speeds at 100 or even 110 km/h (62 to 68 mph). And importantly, these incidents aren’t limited to when Autopilot is turned on. Drivers have reported the same problem even when they’re fully in control.

“Drivers have reported feeling completely terrified when their vehicles have braked suddenly, and it has led in some cases to collisions,” Jancauskas told ABC. “We’ve had many reports of people who registered for this class action, telling us that they’ve been driving with their hands on the vehicle, fully alert, and these issues have occurred nonetheless.”

Claims About Range and Autonomy Under Fire

Beyond the braking problem, the lawsuit also targets Tesla’s advertised driving range. It says the brand’s EV “lack the ability to achieve, or come close to achieving, the advertised maximum range or the range displayed on the vehicle’s dashboard when the battery level is greater than 50%.” The lawsuit claims that Tesla has known its vehicles cannot achieve their mileage claims for several years, yet has done nothing to address it.

In addition, the lawsuit takes issue with Tesla’s Autopilot system, noting “the hardware on Tesla vehicles is incapable of supporting fully autonomous or close to autonomous driving.”

Although more than 10,000 owners have signed on to the class action, Australia’s federal infrastructure department says it has received only six formal complaints about phantom braking. That discrepancy raises questions about the reporting process, but it doesn’t necessarily undermine the broader concerns voiced by Tesla drivers across the country.

It hasn’t been an easy ride for Toyota and Subaru’s first major foray into the EV market. The Toyota bZ4X and Subaru Solterra stand out for their unconventional styling, but unfortunately, not for reasons that win over buyers. Now, Toyota has been hit with a lawsuit in the US that claims the vehicles have 12-volt batteries prone to premature failure, and that the carmaker knew about the problem before it began selling the vehicles.

Filed in California, the class action lawsuit targets 2023 to 2025 model year Toyota bZ4X and Subaru Solterra models. According to the complaint, the 12-volt batteries in these EVs are prone to draining quickly and dying altogether. Although the vehicles are still under warranty and dealers have reportedly been replacing the batteries, the lawsuit alleges that replacements are just as unreliable.

Read: Toyota Kills bZ4X To Welcome New bZ

As with over EVs, the 12-volt battery in question isn’t the one powering the car’s electric motors. It handles secondary systems like the windows, seats, HVAC fans, radio, lights, and wipers. It’s also believed to activate a relay that connects the main battery pack to the electric drivetrain. In other words, it may be small, but when it fails, the car is effectively dead in the water.

Just a single plaintiff has been named in the lawsuit: John Wade. He bought a 2023Toyota bZ4X in March 2023 and says he began experiencing issues within weeks. According to the filing, a series of warning lights lit up the dashboard before the vehicle completely shut down, requiring roadside assistance just to get moving again. Less than 2,000 miles later, the 12-volt battery failed a second time. This time, even a jumpstart couldn’t revive it.

Wade claims he was forced to tow his EV to a nearby Toyota dealership, which replaced the 12-volt battery. In December 2024, this replacement battery died. While attempting to diagnose the problem on his own, Wade paid $4,800 for a Level 2 home charger as he believed the issues may have stemmed from “not using a sufficient EV battery charger.”

Toyota now has until July 3 to officially respond to the lawsuit. For both Toyota and Subaru, the case raises questions about how well early EV issues are being addressed, particularly when they involve something as basic as the 12-volt battery system.

A sign for the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS,  is seen on its building headquarters on Feb. 18, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration sent its first spending cuts request to Congress on Tuesday, asking lawmakers to swiftly eliminate $9.4 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and various foreign aid programs.

The request for what are called rescissions allows the White House budget office to legally freeze spending on those accounts for 45 days while the Republican-controlled Congress debates whether to approve the recommendation in full or in part, or to ignore it.

The proposal calls on lawmakers to eliminate $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. That means NPR and PBS would lose their already approved federal allocations, if the request is approved by Congress.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in May seeking to block the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from providing funding for NPR and PBS, leading to two separate lawsuits citing First Amendment concerns.

In the rescissions request, Trump wants to cut $8.3 billion from foreign aid programs, including the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, a global initiative to combat HIV/AIDS, and the African Development Foundation.

The proposal is the first of several that will seek to codify efforts undertaken by U.S. DOGE Service and billionaire Elon Musk before he left his official role as a special government employee.

White House budget director Russ Vought wrote in a letter accompanying the request that it “emphasizes the need to cut wasteful foreign assistance spending at the Department of State and USAID and through other international assistance programs.”

“These rescissions would eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests, such as funding the World Health Organization, LGBTQI+ activities, ‘equity’ programs, radical Green New Deal-type policies, and color revolutions in hostile places around the world,” Vought wrote. “In addition, Federal spending on CPB subsidizes a public media system that is politically biased and is an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.”

GOP leaders in Congress appear likely to hold floor votes on the request, which only needs a simple majority to pass the Senate, avoiding the need for Democratic support to get past the 60-vote legislative filibuster.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote in a statement the House “will act quickly on this request.”

“This rescissions package reflects many of DOGE’s findings and is one of the many legislative tools Republicans are using to restore fiscal sanity,” Johnson wrote. “Congress will continue working closely with the White House to codify these recommendations, and the House will bring the package to the floor as quickly as possible.”

But Republican leaders could run into problems with centrist Republicans in each chamber, especially those on the Appropriations committees, which approved the funding in the first place.

The GOP holds especially narrow majorities in Congress, requiring the support of nearly every one of the 220 Republicans in the House and the party’s 53 senators.

Republican leaders may need to negotiate what exactly gets written into the rescissions bill if too many moderate Republicans raise objections to cutting off the funding.

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote in a statement the committee “will carefully review the rescissions package and examine the potential consequences of these rescissions on global health, national security, emergency communications in rural communities, and public radio and television stations.”

Foreign aid, public media take hits

The request calls for lawmakers to make cuts to dozens of foreign aid programs, including $500 million out of $4 billion for certain global health programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“This proposal would not reduce treatment but would eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health,’ LGBTQI+ activities, and ‘equity’ programs,” the request states. “This rescission proposal aligns with the Administration’s efforts to eliminate wasteful USAID foreign assistance programs.”

The rescissions request proposes Congress eliminate $400 million of the $6 billion for global health programs that seek to control HIV/AIDS, which OMB writes “would eliminate only those programs that neither provide life-saving treatment nor support American interests.”

The request asks lawmakers to eliminate $2.5 billion of the $3.9 billion they approved for development assistance, which “is intended to fund programs that work to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies, but in practice, many of the DA programs conflict with American values, interfere with the sovereignty of other countries, and bankroll corrupt leaders’ evasion of their responsibilities to their citizens, all while providing no clear benefit to Americans.”

The proposal calls on lawmakers to eliminate more than $1 billion in funding across two fiscal years for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which the administration wrote “would be used to subsidize a public media system that is politically biased and an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.”

President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Patricia Harrison wrote in a statement the organization “is firmly committed to ensuring that funding for public media provides local communities with accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news and information, and we take seriously concerns about bias that have been raised.

“The path to better public media is achievable only if funding is maintained. Otherwise, a vital lifeline that operates reliable emergency communications, supports early learning, and keeps local communities connected and informed will be cut off with regrettable and lasting consequences.”

President and CEO of PBS Paula Kerger wrote in a separate statement that the “proposed rescissions would have a devastating impact on PBS member stations and the essential role they play in communities, particularly smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets.

“Without PBS member stations, Americans will lose unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.”  

Kerger wrote that PBS would seek to keep its funding by demonstrating “our value to Congress, as we have over the last 50 years, in providing educational, enriching programs and critical services to all Americans every day for free.”

NPR CEO Katherine Maher wrote that Congress enacting the rescissions “would irreparably harm communities across America who count on public media for 24/7 news, music, cultural and educational programming, and emergency alerting services.”

“Public safety in every community across the nation could also be affected. NPR, as the entity chosen by public radio stations to operate the nationwide Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS), receives Presidential-level emergency alerts and distributes them across the country within minutes,” Maher wrote. “In the event of a national attack or emergency, communities no longer served by a station would not receive this lifesaving, early warning and civil defense alert.”

More details

A summary of the proposal shared with States Newsroom by the White House budget office ahead of its official release later in the day says the funding cuts would affect programs that sought to reduce xenophobia in Venezuela; support electoral reforms and voter education in Kenya; fund voter identification in Haiti; provide electric buses in Rwanda; broadcast the longtime PBS children’s show “Sesame Street” in Iraq; and strengthen the resilience of LGBTQ global movements.

The proposal would also cut off funding to Harvard University to conduct research models for peace and to New York University to analyze democracy field experiments in South Sudan, according to the OMB summary.

PEPFAR would no longer have funding for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia, or for services for “transgender people, sex workers and their clients and sexual networks” in Nepal, according to the OMB summary.

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a vocal supporter of PEPFAR, said during a brief interview that he was told “that PEPFAR had some cuts, but that the basic core mission was continued.”

Cassidy — chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — said his staff was carefully reviewing the request and knows he cares “about this deeply.”

The rescissions request, which asks lawmakers to claw back already approved funding, is different from the president’s budget request, which proposes spending levels for thousands of federal programs for the upcoming fiscal year.

Both are merely proposals, since the Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse in Article I, Section 9, Clause 7.

Timing on Senate floor vote unclear

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Monday that lawmakers in that chamber will begin reviewing the rescissions request this month, but didn’t detail exactly when he’d hold a floor vote. 

“Another item high on our list to begin work on in June is a rescissions package the White House intends to send Congress this week,” Thune said. “The administration has identified a number of wasteful uses of taxpayer dollars and we will be taking up this package and eliminating this waste. We’ll make that a priority.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement released Monday that “Trump is looking to go after PBS and NPR to settle political scores and muzzle the free press, while undermining foreign assistance programs that push back on China’s malign influence, save lives, and address other bipartisan priorities.”

“If Republicans choose to go along with this rescission package, they will follow Trump at their peril,” Schumer and Murray wrote. “The power of the purse is one of Congress’s most fundamental Constitutional responsibilities. Democrats will not allow Republicans to play games with the budget.”

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said during a brief interview Tuesday that he plans to “carefully” evaluate the rescissions request.

West Virginia GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said Tuesday that she would go over the proposals once it officially arrives from the White House to determine whether she can support moving it across the floor.

“It could be a fight. It could not be a fight,” Capito said. “We just don’t know.”

The House Freedom Caucus, a group of far-right members led by Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, posted Monday its members hope the administration sends additional rescissions requests as quickly as possible.

“Passing this rescissions package will be an important demonstration of Congress’s willingness to deliver on DOGE and the Trump agenda,” the Freedom Caucus statement said. “While the Swamp will inevitably attempt to slow and kill these cuts, there is no excuse for a Republican House not to advance the first DOGE rescissions package the same week it is presented to Congress then quickly send it for passage in the Republican Senate so President Trump can sign it into law.”

A sign for the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS,  is seen on its building headquarters on Feb. 18, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Public Broadcasting Service and Lakeland PBS in Minnesota sued the Trump administration Friday, arguing an executive order seeking to cut off their federal funding violates the Constitution and would “upend public television.”

The lawsuit was filed just days after a collection of National Public Radio stations sued President Donald Trump over the same executive order, which blocked the Corporation from Public Broadcasting from funding the networks.

PBS wrote in its 48-page filing that it disagrees with claims made by the executive order, including that federal spending on public media is “corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence” and that the news organization doesn’t present “a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”

“PBS disputes those charged assertions in the strongest possible terms,” the lawsuit states. “But regardless of any policy disagreements over the role of public television, our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but hadn’t been assigned to a judge as of Friday evening.

White House: PBS supports ‘a particular political party’

White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields wrote in a statement responding to the lawsuit that the “Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers’ dime.

“Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS. The President was elected with a mandate to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and he will continue to use his lawful authority to achieve that objective.”

The lawsuit says Trump’s executive order violates the law that governs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which gives it independence from politicians who might try to control its programs.

“Congress took pains to ensure that the development of public television would be free from political interference, including with respect to content and funding decisions,” the suit states.

It also claims implementing the order would violate the First Amendment of the Constitution.

“The EO makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech,” the lawsuit states. “That is blatant viewpoint discrimination and an infringement of PBS and PBS Member Stations’ private editorial discretion.”

PBS says federal funds ‘instrumental’ for operations

The lawsuit says the loss of funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting envisioned in the executive order would upend programming at PBS and its member stations throughout the country.

“Public television stations receive approximately $325 million in annual federal funding from CPB, nearly all of which goes to PBS Member Stations,” the lawsuit states. “Those funds, which comprise more than 50% of the overall budgets of certain PBS Member Stations, are instrumental to enabling them to operate, to produce programming that serves their local communities, and to pay PBS dues that make PBS programming and services possible.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during her confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Jan. 17, 2025. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)

A federal judge in California said Thursday he is considering issuing an order to preserve work permits for a small group of Venezuelans with temporary protected status, which allows migrants to live in the United States for a set period without fear of deportation.

They were granted these extended protections by immigration officials before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that allowed the Trump administration to revoke those protections.

A hearing before U.S. District Judge Edward Chen was the first in the case since the Supreme Court on May 19 allowed the Trump administration to end temporary protections for a group of 350,000 Venezuelans and vacated Chen’s order blocking the administration’s move.

Chen, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama to a seat in the Northern District of California, acknowledged that the Supreme Court’s decision has left an “island” of about 5,000 Venezuelans who have gotten work permits approved until October of 2026 — before the high court’s order moved up the date their TPS status expired.

“It’s a small exception,” he said.

Attorneys for those TPS holders filed an emergency motion to protect that subgroup to keep those work and deportation protections through October 2026. They are also pushing for an expedited hearing schedule to challenge the administration’s revocation of protections because the group of Venezuelans lost protections in April, meaning they are subject to deportation.

“Every day that there’s not a final decision in this case, our plaintiffs are now subject to deportation, are now losing their jobs, and we need to move urgently towards a final resolution in this case,” Jessica Karp Bansal, who is representing the National TPS Alliance, said at a Thursday hearing.

Back and forth

In March, Chen found that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to revoke extended protections for Venezuelans previously granted under the Biden administration until October of 2026 was arbitrary and capricious. His order overturned Noem’s revocation of protections for one group of Venezuelans who were placed on TPS in 2023.

The group of Venezuelans given protections in 2023 were initially scheduled to lose that status on April 7, meaning the Supreme Court’s May decision allowed Noem to immediately revoke the extended protections. The second group’s protections will end in September.

The groups who brought the suit against Noem represent TPS holders from Venezuela. The immigration groups have amended their complaint to include TPS holders from Haiti, whose protections will expire in August after Noem revoked an extension.

A federal district court in New York this week held oral arguments on the termination of TPS for more than 300,000 Haitians.

The California case is also before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear oral arguments in July.

Noem cited gang activity as her reason for not extending TPS for the 2023 group of Venezuelans.

The attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of the TPS holders, are also pressing for discovery to obtain records and documents to show the decision process for ending TPS for nationals from Venezuela and Haiti.

Chen set a status conference for June 24 at 1 p.m. Pacific Time. 

The National Public Radio headquarters in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.  (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A collection of National Public Radio stations sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, seeking to block an executive order that would cut off their federal funding.

The 43-page filing says the order that President Donald Trump signed earlier this month “violates the expressed will of Congress and the First Amendment’s bedrock guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, and also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information.”

The executive order called on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives its funding from Congress, to cease sending money to the Public Broadcasting Service and NPR.

The order stated that government funding for public media “is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”

The Trump administration also appeared to take issue with the types of news stories that PBS and NPR report, arguing “that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”

‘Viewpoint-based discrimination’

The lawsuit says the executive order has an “overt retaliatory purpose” and “is unlawful in multiple ways.”

“The Order is textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, and it interferes with NPR’s and the Local Member Stations’ freedom of expressive association and editorial discretion,” the lawsuit states. “Lastly, by seeking to deny NPR critical funding with no notice or meaningful process, the Order violates the Constitution’s Due Process Clause.”

The lawsuit was filed by NPR along with three Colorado stations — Aspen Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio and KSUT Public Radio — in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The case has been assigned to Judge Randolph D. Moss, who was nominated by then-President Barack Obama.

White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields wrote in a statement that the “Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers’ dime.

“Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS. The President was elected with a mandate to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and he will continue to use his lawful authority to achieve that objective.”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is funded by Congress and in turn provides grants to more than 1,500 public radio and television stations throughout the United States, was established as a private “nonprofit corporation” and is not “an agency or establishment of the United States Government,” according to the lawsuit.

Power of the purse

Congress has consistently approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on a bipartisan basis, including its current $535 million appropriation.

The lawsuit contends that the “loss of all direct funding from CPB and the loss (or significant decline) of revenue from local stations would be catastrophic for NPR.”

It also states the president “has no authority under the Constitution to” interfere in funding decisions made by lawmakers.” 

“On the contrary, the power of the purse is reserved to Congress, and the President has no inherent authority to override Congress’s will on domestic spending decisions,” the lawsuits says. “By unilaterally imposing restrictions and conditions on funds in contravention of Congress, the Order violates the Separation of Powers and the Spending Clause of the Constitution.”

“We just want to ensure that the most popular method for abortion in Virginia and beyond is protected no matter who sits at the White House and who sits in the FDA,” said Whole Woman’s Health founder and president Amy Hagstrom Miller outside of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, on May 19, 2025. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Abortion pills — and questions over their inherent safety — were back in federal court Monday. Unlike a lawsuit rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, plaintiffs this time are not anti-abortion activists arguing medication abortion should be banned, but abortion providers arguing the remaining restrictions should be lifted to match the drug’s 25-year record of safety and efficacy.

The suit seeks to make abortion pills more accessible by removing several existing restrictions on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s mifepristone-misoprostol regimen first approved in 2000. The drug was approved under the FDA’s drug safety program called Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), provisions of which have been steadily eliminated over time but not fully.

On behalf of independent providers in Virginia, Montana, and Kansas, Center for Reproductive Rights senior counsel Linda Goldstein argued the FDA’s most recent evaluations did not properly assess whether remaining restrictions are still medically necessary. She argued that the biggest risks the FDA has identified with mifepristone — serious bleeding and infection — are not exclusive to the drug but with all pregnancy terminations, including spontaneous miscarriages, which she said affected about 25% of all pregnancies. Beyond abortion, for which the drug has captured attention, mifepristone is also used to treat miscarriages so that they conclude safely to help prevent infection.

“The FDA has acknowledged that staying pregnant is more dangerous than not staying pregnant,” said Goldstein, arguing that at minimum the FDA should be required to explain why drugs that pose similar risks are not subject to the same restrictions.

She noted that of the 20,000 drugs the FDA has approved, only 73 have REMS provisions, and that mifepristone has proven to be a safe drug over time. About 7.5 million U.S. patients have taken it as of the end of last year, Goldstein said. As of December 2024, the FDA has reported 36 patient deaths associated with mifepristone since it was first approved in 2000.

Whole Woman’s Health Alliance v. FDA is the first time the U.S. Department of Justice is arguing a position on mifepristone in court since the Trump administration took office. Justice Department attorneys said current regulations are necessary for the most common form of pregnancy termination to be considered safe. When asked by the judge, DOJ attorney Noah Katzen did not confirm or deny whether or not the FDA still considers the drug to be safe and effective overall.

“That is what the FDA determined in the past,” Katzen said during the hearing at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Charlottesville, where the case was originally filed in 2023.

Katzen, the FDA’s former associate chief counsel until 2021 and currently a trial attorney for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said the FDA has found that the evidence was “not sufficient” to conclude the REMS are no longer necessary.

U.S. District Judge Robert S. Ballou, appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, appeared more sympathetic to plaintiffs’ argument that some of the requirements appear arbitrary in that they don’t apply to other drugs with equal or greater risk, including drugs his parents have taken. 

Ballou did not rule at the end of Monday’s hearing but said he would as soon as possible.

After the hearing, Whole Woman’s Health Alliance founder and president Amy Hagstrom Miller told States Newsroom she took note of Katzen’s response about whether the FDA considers mifepristone to be safe and effective.

“It was an interesting choice of words,” she said.

This lawsuit is among several federal cases involving mifepristone. Earlier this month, the Trump administration filed a brief in the case Missouri v. FDA, requesting the court dismiss three states’ lawsuit to restrict mifepristone on procedural grounds, but did not comment on the merits of the case or explicitly defend the FDA’s current medication abortion policy.

While the Missouri v. FDA lawsuit seeks to reinstate regulations loosened between 2016 and 2021, the Whole Woman’s Health v. FDA lawsuit takes aim at restrictions that require: medical professionals who prescribe mifepristone to register with the drug manufacturer; pharmacies to apply for special certification and maintain copious records, and patients to review and sign a counseling form.

On behalf of plaintiffs, which include Whole Woman’s Health Alliance in Virginia and other states, All Families Healthcare and Blue Mountain Clinic in Montana, and Trust Women in Kansas, Goldstein argued that these existing rules are burdensome and make these medications harder to access by limiting the number of providers and pharmacies who can provide and dispense it and impede access to time-sensitive care.

Goldstein noted the “political climate” surrounding mifepristone and pointed to how abortion opponents seek either rescinding of FDA approval for mifepristone or a return to the in-person dispensing requirements. She added how efforts to make abortion medication more difficult to obtain are outlined in Project 2025 — the conservative Heritage Foundation’s playbook.

Before and especially since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, anti-abortion groups have tried to convince courts that abortion pills, in addition to ending the lives of embryos and fetuses, harm pregnant people at rates that warrant being pulled from the market or at the very least heavily restricted.

During his presidential campaign and since taking office, President Donald Trump and his health appointees have messaged strategically on medication abortion, on the one hand promising to retain its access while also open to examining new evidence suggesting it is unsafe.

Just last week, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he would direct the FDA to review abortion pill safety and potentially change its drug label, following the release of an anti-abortion white paper commissioned by far-right funders, whose analysis has been widely criticized by reproductive health scientists and is outflanked by hundreds of studies showing a very low rate of serious adverse events.

Significant for the South 

Hagstrom Miller called the current restrictions “politically motivated” and said overturning them would be especially significant for Virginia, which as the least restrictive state in the South, has seen an uptick in people traveling from elsewhere to receive care.

“They’re not related to the safety of the medication,” Hagstrom Miller said, of the current restrictions. “We just want to ensure that the most popular method for abortion in Virginia and beyond is protected no matter who sits at the White House and who sits in the FDA.”

Virginia is in the process of amending its state constitution to enshrine abortion and other reproductive health care procedures or medications. The constitutional amendment passed the legislature on party-line votes this year and must pass again next year before appearing on ballots for voters statewide. Its continued success or failure hinges on the outcome of the state’s competitive House of Delegates elections — where Democrats hold a slim majority.

While governors don’t have a say in constitutional amendments, the issue is a divergence between gubernatorial candidates Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Democratic challenger former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. This means that should the amendment fail and partisan control of the House shift, whoever is the next governor could advance or block potential future efforts to walk back Virginia’s current abortion access laws. 

“It’s really important that we protect that safe access to medication abortion no matter where people live — Virginia is playing a key role in the South right now,” Hagstrom Miller said.