Democrats want to reform an 1873 federal law prohibiting mailing abortion-related materials, concerned a future Trump administration might use the Comstock Act to restrict abortion access or ban the procedure entirely, The Washington Post reports. “There is a very clear, well-organized plan afoot by the MAGA Republicans to use Comstock as a tool to ban medication abortion, and potentially all abortions,” said Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who on Thursday plans to introduce legislation to repeal the Comstock Act’s abortion provisions. “My job is to take that tool away.” Democrats’ push to defang the 151-year-old law comes less than five months before a presidential election in which reproductive rights appear destined to play a defining role. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and other Democrats have signed on to the legislation. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) will introduce companion legislation in the House and said she believed House Democratic leaders support the effort.
However, not all Democrats agree that attempting to repeal the Comstock Act’s abortion provisions should be an election-year priority, worried it will distract from the party’s existing efforts to protect abortion access and to focus voters’ attention on reproductive health issues. While President Biden has heavily campaigned on Republicans’ efforts to limit abortion, he has not endorsed repealing Comstock and has avoided focusing on the law. Some advocates predict that the legislation is doomed in a divided Congress, highlighting the defeats of recent bills to protect access to contraception and in vitro fertilization. The Biden administration has maintained that the law applies only when the person who mails abortion pills and other restricted items intends for the recipient to “use them unlawfully." It is not clear whether Donald Trump would seek to invoke Comstock if elected. As president, Trump nominated three Supreme Court justices who ruled to overturn Roe, reinstated restrictions on funding of abortion overseas and took other steps that led activists to hail him as the most antiabortion president in history.
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