Comment: Lame-duck Congress can still save medication abortion

By Erwin Chemerinsky and Miles Mogulescu / For the Los Angeles Times

Before Democrats lose the White House and the Senate, they should push through legislation to repeal the Comstock Act, which could be used to prevent legal medically induced abortions everywhere in the United States. Given the success of ballot initiatives that protect the right to abortion in even conservative states in last month’s election, the politics could be right to repeal that 1873 law.

The Comstock Act was adopted to prohibit the interstate shipment of obscene materials. The law also outlawed the shipment of anything meant to prevent conception or end pregnancy.

The law, as it now stands, prohibits the shipment through the mail of “every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.” It also forbids any “express company or other common carrier” from providing for “carriage” of such items “in interstate or foreign commerce.” The act provides for a sentence of up to five years for the first offense and 10 years plus a fine for the second.

In 2023, 63 percent of all abortions in states without total bans were medically induced rather than surgical. Conservatives want the federal government to invoke the Comstock Act to prohibit any shipment of mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs used for medically induced abortions, by mail or other service, in effect ending them in the United States. This would apply even in states with strong abortion protections, such as California.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-lame-duck-congress-can-still-save-medication-abortion/

With Moses in charge of the House? Not likely but it could show where everyone stands.