A right-wing think tank is pushing the next Republican president to enforce a 19th Century law in order to prosecute people who send abortion drugs through the mail.
Axios reports that the Heritage Foundation has outlined a plan to use the 1873 Comstock Act that banned the mailing of "obscene" material and enforce it with regard to abortion drugs.
"While the law has been cut down over the years, the abortion provision remained but was ignored while Roe v. Wade was in place," Axios writes. "Medication abortion usually involves the use of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, and accounts for more than half of abortions in the U.S."
While the current United States Department of Justice does not hold the Heritage Foundation's interpretation of the law, that could easily change with new DOJ personnel who are more sympathetic to the anti-abortion cause.
"If Trump were elected, not only would I not be surprised, but I would expect the administration to direct DOJ to overturn its guidance on the Comstock Act and rule that shipping mifepristone through the U.S. Postal Service is a violation of that statute," Georgetown Law professor Lawrence Gostin explained to Axios.
Gostin added that this would " create a significant impediment to access to the most common, safest and most effective method of getting an abortion."
