Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a lawsuit on Monday that seeks to consolidate a major challenge to the Food and Drug Administration's approval of common abortion drugs sent by mail.

The attorney general's request comes after President Joe Biden's Justice Department and the manufacturer of the widely used abortion drug mifepristone asked the Supreme Court in early September to reverse a lower court ruling that, if allowed to go into effect, would restrict access to the drug.

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"Unelected federal bureaucrats do not have the statutory authority to approve the shipment of these dangerous chemical abortion drugs in the mail," said Bailey, who is joined by Idaho and Kansas in a new suit calling on a Texas federal district court to "combine this complaint with the existing lawsuit over the same matter brought by doctors across the country, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA."

Mifepristone works by blocking a pregnant woman's progesterone receptors, stopping fetal development in the womb. Within 48 hours of taking mifepristone, the patient is instructed to take misoprostol, the second chemical abortifacient, to induce uterine contractions to expel the pregnancy. Over half of all abortions are conducted by either a mifepristone-misoprostol combination or solely with misoprostol.

The new complaint filed by the three states seeks to join a major lawsuit led by the powerhouse conservative legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom, which has led numerous landmark cases at the high court, including the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case, which unwound nearly 50 years of abortion precedent under Roe v. Wade.

Mifepristone remains available and is not subject to restrictions that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has said should be imposed on its use. Those restrictions would not apply until all legal challenges are resolved, thanks to an April order by the Supreme Court.

The 5th Circuit has rejected the claim that the drug should be taken off the market, holding that the FDA's initial approval in 2000 is barred by the statute of limitations. However, the court did say that changes the FDA made in 2016 and 2021 that expanded access to the pills were arbitrary and capricious in violation of federal law.

ADF senior counsel Erin Hawley said she was encouraged by the three states intervening in the case.

"As someone who knows the state of Missouri and its people very well, it is encouraging to see Missouri, along with Kansas and Idaho, intervene in this important case to protect the health and well-being of women and girls," Hawley said.

Missouri's complaint specifically seeks an injunction against the 2016 rollback of most of the safety precautions the FDA had put in place when it approved mifepristone in 2000, the 2019 FDA approval of generic mifepristone, and the 2021 and 2023 policy allowing these drugs to be sent by mail.

Bailey filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, in which a judge initially said the FDA's 2000 approval of the drug should be scrutinized. The 5th Circuit later pared back that ruling but applied similar scrutiny against more recent changes that expanded access to the drug.

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"The FDA's guidance is not only unlawful but would cost the lives of both women and their unborn children. I am proud to be leading a coalition of states to halt the FDA's illegal federal overreach in its tracks," Bailey said.

The Washington Examiner contacted the Justice Department for a response.