Led by Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and co-sponsored by 15 other senators, the legislation would repeal the provisions of the Comstock Act that could be used to ban the mailing of mifepristone and other drugs used in medication abortions, instruments and equipment used in abortions, and educational material related to sexual health.
Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) introduced a companion bill in the House.
"The Comstock Act is a 150-year-old zombie law banning abortion that's long been relegated to the dustbin of history. But extremist Republicans and Trump judges have seized upon the idea of misusing Comstock to bypass Congress and strip women nationwide of their reproductive freedoms," Smith said in a statement.
The 151-year-old law explicitly prohibits the shipment of "every article or thing designed, adapted or intended for producing abortion."
Now that the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade ruling has been overturned, anti-abortion activists see an opening.
These activists, working with former Trump administration officials, have been laying the groundwork for the next Republican administration to apply the Comstock Act to prevent the mailing of any abortion drugs and materials, effectively banning all abortions without needing Congress to act.
"Trump's allies have said that the 150-year-old Comstock Act gives Trump the authority to effectively ban medication abortion nationwide, even in states where abortion is currently legal," Morgan Mohr, the Biden campaign's senior adviser for reproductive rights, said in a recent memo to reporters.
It is unlikely a Comstock repeal bill would get very far in the current divided Congress, especially since Republicans in the Senate have blocked recent bills to protect access to contraception and in vitro fertilization. But Democrats are committed to elevating abortion as an election year issue.
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