Key to these plans was Anthony Comstock, the Bluenose campaigner who boasted of persecuting Margaret Sanger, arresting thousands of people, and driving 15 of his targets to suicide. It’s a bad law from the 19th century. The Comstock Act, passed in 1873, prohibited any “obscene, lewd, lewd, indecent, Prohibited from mailing “filthy, dirty, or indecent items.” Until very recently, the Comstock Act was considered uncontroversial, rendered meaningless by a series of Supreme Court decisions on the First Amendment, contraception, and abortion. But it never actually repealed, and now that Trump judges have repealed Roe, Trump’s allies believe they can use Comstock to push for abortion nationwide.
Jonathan F. Mitchell, a former Texas attorney general and legal director of the state’s abortion bounty law, told the New York Times in February that “Mr. Comstock’s involvement could lead to a federal ban.” It’s not necessary,” he said. Mitchell is truly a MAGA insider. He represented Mr. Trump in a Supreme Court case stemming from Colorado’s attempt to exclude the former president from voting as an insurrectionist. As reported by the Times, Mitchell was scrutinized by America First Legal, a nonprofit led by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, as having the “backbone” to serve in the second Trump administration. is on the list of lawyers who have
Mitchell isn’t the only Trumpist dreaming of bringing Comstock back from the dead. The 2025 Presidential Transition Project, a coalition of major right-wing think tanks, has released a 920-page plan for the new Trump administration, “The Leadership Mission.” In it, Gene Hamilton, vice president of America First Legal and a former Trump Justice Department official, lays out the Justice Department’s plan to target abortion pills.
“Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, the federal government’s enforcement of this law is no longer prohibited,” he wrote of Comstock. “Therefore, the next conservative administration’s Department of Justice should announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and sellers of such pills.” The FDA has also said it should revoke its approval of medical abortions.)
The reinstated Comstock Act would not only prevent women from ordering abortion pills by mail. Additionally, doctors and pharmacies may not be able to dispense them because neither the post office nor express carriers such as UPS or FedEx can ship them in the first place. And it would give the Justice Department grounds to crack down on networks that help provide the pills to women in states where abortion is prohibited.
