Ever since women lost federal protection over their reproductive decisions with the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the race has been on to make it ironclad.
Former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court picks were instrumental in the court’s 5-4 decision on June 24, 2022. The justices’ youth — Amy Coney Barrett, 52, Neil Gorsuch, 56, and Brett Kavanaugh, 59 — in the lifetime position, ensure the country will face a Sisyphean battle for individual rights for years to come.
In fact, it started Tuesday, when attorneys before the high court proposed it be a federal crime to send or receive through the mail medication that halts a woman’s pregnancy.
Today, mifepristone is the most popular drug of choice because it’s safe, effective and private.
Mifepristone, approved by the Federal Drug Administration in 2000, is part of a two-drug regimen used in almost two-thirds of all U.S. abortions. Its implementation is limited to the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Plaintiffs are reaching back to a draconian 150-year-old law that prohibits mailing “every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing” that could possibly lead to an abortion.
Passed in 1873, the Comstock Act is an over-broad piece of legislation written by a narrow-minded man who made it his personal mission to eradicate promiscuity. Trouble is, in Anthony Comstock’s efforts to ban lewd acts, the law also affects the distribution of medical textbooks and instruments, renowned literary works, and so on.
Since its infancy, the law has been deemed indefensible.
No matter, say its revivers, who contend the Comstock Act would see that those who distribute and receive mifepristone would face criminal prosecution.
If the Supreme Court agrees, the ruling would also apply to medical supplies used to perform surgical abortions, effectively making abortion impossible to access across the land.
Beyond this singular case, is the goal to further restrict women’s rights as outlined in the 887-page plan nicknamed “Project 2025” being promoted by pious-minded groups like the Heritage Foundation if Trump is elected to a second term.
Their blueprint includes revoking mifepristone’s FDA approval, restricting contraception, banning in vitro fertilization (IVF) for those struggling to conceive, and ending the requirement that hospitals provide medically necessary abortions.
The future of reproductive rights could indeed be grim.
— Susan Lynn
