Washington, D.C. — For decades, the far right has pushed ideas that have stripped Americans of some of their reproductive freedoms. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 underscores how the eradication of the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center was just the first step in a long-term plan to exert control over reproductive freedom for all Americans.
A new Center for American Progress (CAP) column highlights Project 2025’s plan to misapply the Comstock Act to eliminate access to medication abortion through the mail by overriding the independence of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
The Comstock Act has never been officially interpreted by federal courts, federal agencies, or Congress as an enforceable law that enables criminalization of abortion access via mail. Since it is nearly impossible to determine whether the intent of the person providing or mailing medication abortion or abortion-related materials is unlawful, it is therefore nearly impossible to prosecute. However, far-right extremists are vowing to misapply Comstock in order to change that.
Project 2025 explicitly directs the DOJ to misapply Comstock in several ways:
- Exploit the department’s authority to broadly criminalize various aspects of mailing medication abortion and abortion-related materials.
- Interpret Comstock to prosecute a variety of providers who prescribe medication abortion (physicians, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants) and distributors such as the U.S. Postal Service and FedEx, while also targeting drug manufacturers that create generic versions of mifepristone and misoprostol.
- Enforce Comstock against “providers and distributors” of medication abortion.
- Decide what punishment can be attached to a Comstock violation, including potential felony charges, severe monetary fees, loss of professional license, and prison time.
“Project 2025’s plan for Comstock makes it clear that far-right extremists are willing to override and bypass the democratic norms of checks and balances to obtain their goal of a national abortion ban,” said Sabrina Talukder, director of the Women’s Initiative at CAP and author of the column. “A far-right DOJ would aim to destroy—from start to finish—the entire system of medication abortion via mail.”
Read the column: “Project 2025’s Distortion of a Reconstruction Era Law Could Enact a National Abortion Ban” by Sabrina Talukder.
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Sarah Nadeau at [email protected].
