Opinion | Can the 19th Century Law That Banned Walt Whitman Also Ban Abortion by Mail?
Fast forward to 2023, and it’s not at all clear how activist judges like Matthew Kacsmaryk believe they can wind back the clock. The Comstock laws have long been superseded by a statutory and legal privacy revolution — beginning at least with Griswold v Connecticut (1965) — that granted individuals the right to consume pornography, purchase sex toys, use contraception and, in roughly half the states, terminate a pregnancy.
Read more at Politico
This 150-Year-Old Anti-Vice Law Is Now At The Center Of The Push To Ban Abortion
In their decisions restricting the distribution of mifepristone, District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee, and two other Trump-appointed judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals adopted interpretations of the 1873 Comstock Act that could lead to a total nationwide ban on abortion.
Read more at Huffpost
Why anti-abortion groups are citing the ideas of a 19th-century ‘vice reformer’
“Because if you can prosecute anyone for putting anything in the mail related to abortion, there is no abortion in the United States that takes place without something put in the mail,” Ziegler says. “There are no abortion providers making DIY drugs and medical devices.”
Read more at National Public Radio, Inc.