“Menstrual police?” you may be thinking. That’s not possible! Not in America!
Read on.
The Comstock Act is an 1873 law that, if enforced, would outlaw all abortions in America by banning the shipping via mail, UPS, FedEx, etc., of any device, drug, or instrument that can be used to produce an abortion. It would even shut down hospital abortions.
It could also be used to empower new state or even federal police agencies specifically overseeing women violating its provisions. Like the menstrual police, which a Trump senior advisor just said was a very real possibility.
First the background.
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It’s the opinion of the Biden Administration that the Comstock Act — which is still on the books — is no longer enforceable, and the Biden DOJ (along with those of every president since Richard Nixon) refuses to enforce it.
Senator JD Vance disagrees.
He (and a few other Republican senators) sent a letter to Merrick Garland demanding that the Comstock Act be enforced by the FBI and DOJ now. He wrote:
“It is disappointing, yet not surprising, that the Biden administration’s DOJ has not only abdicated its Constitutional responsibility to enforce the law, but also has once again twisted the plain meaning of the law in an effort to promote the taking of unborn life.”
That’s right: JD Vance wants the Comstock Act enforced now.
The authors of Project 2025 agree as well, saying that the next Republican president should immediately restore enforcement of the law to end all abortion in America. They propose the next Republican president should launch:
“[A] campaign to enforce the criminal prohibitions” of the Comstock Act, including “against providers and distributors of abortion pills.”
They’re not kidding around and this is no rhetorical exercise. As JD Vance noted in the letter to Garland that he wrote and signed:
“As you are aware, violations of the Federal mail-order abortion laws constitute predicate offenses under both the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and Federal criminal money laundering statutes. RICO provides for enhanced criminal penalties and civil causes of action against anyone who, in connection with an enterprise, engages in a pattern of violating the Federal mail-order abortion laws.
“In addition, the Federal money laundering statutes outlaw certain international and domestic financial transactions involving proceeds from violations of the Federal mail-order abortion laws.”
In this, they’re aligned with the GOPs favorite authoritarian strongman, Viktor Orbán. As a spokeswoman for Hungary’s top human rights organization noted, there is:
“[A] rather strict system within the [Hungarian] state infrastructure that requires pregnant women to contact the state nurse services upon learning about their pregnancy and check in regularly.”
Would Vance (who is probably more likely to finish out Trump’s term than Trump himself, given how obese and in poor health the 78-year-old candidate is) require girls and women who miss their periods to register with the state like in Hungary?
Or perhaps require menstruating women to wear watches or rings that monitor their ovulation, with the data being sent directly to the Menstrual Police?
Yeah, that sounds pretty out there, right?
Until you consider that just last week Trump/Vance Senior Advisor Jason Miller told a Newsmax interviewer that it’s “going to be up to the states” if they want to set up systems to “monitor women’s pregnancies.”
Yep. Under the next Republican administration every fertile woman in every Republican-controlled state could be subject to intrusive state surveillance.
Did I mention that to set something like this up JD Vance wants the Comstock Act — which could be the foundation for this — enforced now? As he wrote to Attorney General Garland:
“We demand that you act swiftly and in accordance with the law, shut down all mail-order abortion operations, and hold abortionists, pharmacists, international traffickers, and online purveyors, who break the Federal mail-order abortion laws, accountable.”
Corrupt Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito agrees with him. In open court, during oral arguments earlier this year, he opined:
“This [Comstock Act] is a prominent provision. It’s not some obscure subsection of a complicated, obscure law. Everybody in this field knew about it.”
And Clarence Thomas laid out the possibility of future litigation when he essentially threatened the lawyer for Danco Laboratories, the manufacturer of Mifepristone, during oral arguments:
“How do you respond to an argument that mailing your product and advertising it would violate the Comstock Act?” He went onto note that the law “is fairly broad, and it specifically covers drugs such as yours.”
Former NY Postmaster and anti-pornography crusader Anthony Comstock lobbied for and shepherded through Congress his law; it passed on March 3, 1873 and was titled “An Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, obscene Literature and Articles of immoral Use.” Today we refer to it as the Comstock Act.
Its language with regard to abortion is not at all ambiguous:
“Every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance … designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; and
“Every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and
“Every written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information, directly or indirectly, where, or how, or from whom, or by what means any of such mentioned matters, articles, or things may be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act or operation of any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion will be done or performed, or how or by what means abortion may be produced, whether sealed or unsealed; and
“Every paper, writing, advertisement, or representation that any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing may, or can, be used or applied for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; and
“Every description calculated to induce or incite a person to so use or apply any such article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing—
“Is declared to be nonmailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any post office or by any letter carrier.” (emphasis mine)
The penalty is also not ambiguous. Persons mailing information about abortion, or drugs or devices to produce an abortion:
“[S]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both, for the first such offense, and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, for each such offense thereafter.” (emphasis mine)
An expansive read of this law could include anybody who emails or shares abortion information online with a pregnant woman, or even indirectly helps her get an abortion, as is already happening in some Red states. NPR, for example, noted in a headline:
“A Nebraska woman is charged with helping her daughter have an abortion” because she shared information about Mifepristone with her daughter in a Facebook private message that the Nebraska police tracked down.
JD Vance and his fellow Republican members of Congress want the Comstock Act enforced nationwide now. They point out that they don’t even need a ruling from the Supreme Court: they just need a Republican president who will direct his Department of Justice and FBI to root out all those people who are sending women Mifepristone through the mail — or information about abortion online — and throw them in prison.
Along with the docs and nurses, clinics and hospitals, and even newspapers and magazines (and their writers and publishers) who may write about abortion in a way Republicans could construe as informing women about what abortion is and how to get or induce one.
After all, the Comstock Act is still on the books. All it requires is an administration willing to enforce it.
And, wow, are they impatient!
In a threatening letter sent to executives at CVS (among other pharmacy chains), Mississippi Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and eight other Republican senators (Lankford, Daines, Braun, Rubio, Marshall, Risch, Crapo, and Blackburn) wrote that the Biden interpretation (and that of Congress in 1955, 1958, 1971, and 1994) that the Comstock Act is no longer in force is wrong.
They explicitly assert that the Comstock Act is still in effect and they want it enforced today:
“We write to express our support and agreement with 21 [Republican] State Attorneys General,” they wrote “who have reminded you that Federal law in 18 U.S.C. 1461-1462 [the Comstock Act] criminalizes nationwide using the mail, or interstate shipment by any express company or common carrier, to send or receive any drug that is ‘designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.’”
Again, JD Vance agrees. As he wrote to AG Garland:
“[W]e expect that you put the law and your obligation to enforce it above the abortion industry’s dangerous and deadly political agenda.”
Thus, Trump‘s top senior advisor says it’s time to let authorities start monitoring pregnant women so Red state anti-abortion laws can be more vigorously enforced. When Trump Senior Advisor Jason Miller was specifically asked about setting up state Menstrual Police:
“[Trump] wouldn’t support monitoring pregnancies even if a state decided to do that?”
He replied:
“Well, he's made it very clear that he's not gonna go and weigh in and try to push various states in how they want to go and set up their particular rules and restrictions. That’s gonna be up to the states.”
These religious fanatics are playing for keeps, and American women have already died and are dying as a result of the actions they’ve already taken.
And the failure of our media to focus on their clear and explicit — and public — declarations of intention is journalistic malpractice.
Vote!
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