TEXAS ABORTION RESTRICTIONS

How an old law found new life in lawsuit seeking to revoke approval of abortion pill

Anti-abortion advocates are trying to revive the long-dormant 1873 Comstock Act, which banned mailing of anything related to abortion or contraception, in a lawsuit about mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug.

BY ELEANOR KLIBANOFF MARCH 20, 2023 | 10 HOURS AGO

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In an Amarillo courthouse last week, lawyers seeking to move abortion medication off the market focused less on the existential question of when life begins — and more on the procedural question of when a law dies.

The lawsuit focuses on the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug. But lawyers for the Alliance Defending Freedom took the opportunity to appeal to a higher power — U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — to resurrect a long-dormant law that would upend abortion access in the United States.

The Comstock Act of 1873 banned the mailing of anything related to contraception or abortion. The contraception clauses were removed in 1971, and the law was entirely unenforced during the five-decade reign of Roe v. Wade.

Now, with Roe off the table, anti-abortion groups want Kacsmaryk to affirm that Comstock is good law and can be applied broadly, not just to unlawful abortions, as the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden has posited.

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