When the government thinks abortion pills are scarier than guns

We will never make gains on addressing public safety unless we have a shared definition of what safety looks like. I have long railed against the Trump administration for hollering about crime and violence while at the same time actively undermining the policies and programs that actually keep our communities safe. But this week something happened that put that disconnect into stark relief. I am still reeling from it.

It’s mifepristone. It’s guns. And it highlights how willfully ignorant this administration is to what truly constitutes danger.

If you are one of my readers I suspect you have already heard the news about mifepristone. On Friday, a federal appeals court restricted access to this very safe and common method of abortion by blocking the mailing of mifepristone prescriptions. The ruling in Louisiana v. FDA by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals grants Louisiana’s request to reinstate a nationwide requirement, which had been lifted by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2021, that patients obtain mifepristone in person at a health center or clinic. The unanimous ruling by the notoriously conservative judges of the Fifth Circuit flies in the face of regulations set by actual scientists who work for a federal agency. And the language of the ruling is chilling, essentially providing judicial cover to Louisiana’s abortion ban. It reads: “Every abortion facilitated by FDA’s action cancels Louisiana’s ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that ‘every unborn child is human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person.’”

This is an absolutely wild ruling, made even more alarming given how little precedent there is for a federal court overruling regulations made by FDA scientists. It has no regard for the health and wellbeing of women who have no options for abortion care in their state and no resources to travel out of state to access such care. And it of course, furthers the fetal personhood argument in a new and dangerous way.

And and and… in addition to all of that, all this comes from the state that has some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the entire country. From 2018-2022 Louisiana had a rate of 37.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, a rate over three times as high as several other states. The Louisiana Maternal Mortality Review Committee — an initiative of the Louisiana Department of Health — determined that 94% of the 2020’s pregnancy-related deaths were preventable, the most recent year the report was released. The racial disparities are stark, with Black mothers making up only 37% of births in Louisiana in 2020, but accounting for 62% of pregnancy-related deaths. Essentially, Louisiana is forcing women to stay pregnant but doing a very terrible job of keeping women healthy during pregnancy.

But we are not done yet. Let’s also remember that the leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum people is not a medical condition, it is homicide. According to researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, “women in the U.S. who are pregnant or who have recently given birth are more likely to be murdered than to die from obstetric causes—and these homicides are linked to a deadly mix of intimate partner violence and firearms”.

So how does this all come together in Louisiana? For some context, last year Gov. Jeff Landry reduced state funding for domestic violence prevention programs by $7 million. This was the second year in a row his budget proposal included deep cuts to these services. And in direct contrast to their lack of commitment to serving victims of domestic violence is their strong commitment to guns. Each year, the national gun violence prevention organization Giffords releases a scorecard, grading each state on the strength of their gun laws and rates of gun deaths. Louisiana consistently gets an F grade. To further highlight the point, a 2025 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that the state with the highest rate of pregnancy homicide using a firearm was… Louisiana.

But mifepristone. That’s what Louisiana needed to restrict. Mifepristone.

I am a former advocate for survivors of domestic violence turned gun violence prevention activist. What I would want from Louisiana is a concerted effort to give survivors the services they need. I want state officials in Louisiana to address the guns that are too often being used to threaten and harm survivors, including pregnant and postpartum survivors. I want them to figure out how to give pregnant people the care they need to survive being pregnant. But instead, we have abortion bans and federal judges focused on protecting the “unborn” of Louisiana and beyond.

None of this is public safety.

There was some other news last week that seems to have gone largely unnoticed. On April 29th, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced their plans to repeal or revise over 30 gun regulations and procedures under the guise of “modernizing” the ATF.

From national gun violence publication The Trace’s coverage of the announcement: “The proposals span firearms transaction forms, electronic recordkeeping, import rules, and the procedures governing the registration of weapons like machine guns, suppressors, and sawed-off shotguns. The package was prompted by a directive from President Donald Trump last year ordering the Justice Department to review the ATF’s policies for gun rights violations.”

Yes, Donald Trump ordered the policy review for the purpose of protecting not people, but gun rights. The proposals include measures such as formally ending a Biden-era regulation on pistol braces, a gun accessory that has been used in mass shootings. Another proposal formally repeals a regulation that banned bump stocks, a device that can increase a gun’s rate of fire to that of a machine gun. You might remember that a bump stock was used in the Las Vegas shooting that claimed the lives of 59 people and left more than 800 injured — and was the deadliest mass shooting in United States history.

But the Trump administration would have you believe that we need to ban abortion to keep people safe, not ban bump stocks.

To make matters worse, as we consider the Fifth Circuit‘s decision to block the mailing of mifepristone, there is another gun related matter that stands in stark contrast. The Trump administration has taken significant steps to undo a century old prohibition on the mailing of handguns. Yes, because that is exactly what we need to be doing right now: ensuring that guns can be delivered by your neighborhood letter carrier. A 15 page opinion from Trump’s Department of Justice concluded that a 1927 law — one that made it illegal to use the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to mail concealable firearms — infringes on the Second Amendment. According to T. Elliot Gaiser, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), restrictions on sending handguns through the mail are unenforceable because such firearms “fall within the core of the ‘arms’ protected by the Second Amendment.” Then in late March, the USPS released a new proposed rule that would reclassify handguns as “mailable” under its regulatory standards. The USPS said the change was necessary to conform with the OLC guidance referenced above. This proposed rule is not yet settled policy — there will be a public comment period that will likely take months. But I fear that not enough people even know that this potential policy change is afoot. The ability to mail handguns could become a reality without the public being aware. And that truly scares me.

I also fear that not enough people are making the following connection: at the same time the extremist Fifth Circuit is telling us that mifepristone is too dangerous to be sent through the mail… the extremist Trump administration is telling us to go ahead and mail our guns.

In a million years this doesn’t make sense. It‘s not public safety. It’s not. It entirely fractures the conversation about what does in fact keep us safe. It’s gaslighting. It’s infuriating. And it just proves my point that extremism can only exist on a foundation of extreme hypocrisy.

All of this comes to us alongside so much other news that flies in the face of what actually keeps us safe. Trump’s insistence that the only answer to the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting is to build a bullet proof ballroom. His further insistence that the Democrats are the ones inciting political violence while posting an AI generated image of himself holding a semiautomatic weapon. And of course, the successful dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, which is absolutely going to impact safety. You cannot have a safe and healthy society without a government that is functional and representative of all its people. ALL its people. And we also need our government to be accountable TO its people. With the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, that accountability becomes even more elusive. Trump’s regime acting without fear of consequences? That too is a safety issue. One that we are seeing play out before our very eyes.

There is so much to say about how this administration hollers about crime and violence while simultaneously destroying the programs and policies that keep our communities safe. While at the very same time engaging in hateful rhetoric and literally calling for violence against political opponents.

And the next time someone claims that this administration is doing anything at all to promote public safety, I want you to ask them the following question.

What is more dangerous, an abortion pill or a gun? Do you want a government that keeps you safe from mifepristone or from being shot?

See what they have to say.