We Californians think we are protected from all the reproductive-rights mayhem that‘s going on in Red states with abortion bans. However, under a Republican president, Trump or anyone else is elected, the GOP’s Project 2025 will bring this trauma home.
It’s time to remove the poisonous Comstock Act and surveillance threats.
This legislative antique could ban abortions nationwide.
“The weapon of choice by the anti-abortion litigators and Christian nationalist judges is the Comstock Act. They are resurrecting the infamous 1873 act that made it illegal to send “obscene, lewd or lascivious,” “immoral” or “indecent” publications or contraceptive or abortifacient devices (dubbed “indecent articles”) through the mail. The federal act deputized U.S. Postal Inspector Comstock to personally prosecute cases, and he bragged that he was responsible for 4,000 arrests and 15 suicides. The act held up education and distribution of contraceptives for more than half a century, and wasn’t overturned with regard to birth control devices until Margaret Sanger, herself a victim of the Comstock Act, took and won a challenge, United States v. One Package, in 1933.
Unfortunately, Congress never repealed the obsolete act. Now with the medication abortion pill, an abortifacient, on the chopping block, the Comstock Act is at the center of legal wrangling. That’s why Congress needs to act now, irrespective of what the high court rules and how this case proceeds.”
Related Comstock threat – Pg. 5 of the GOP’s Project 2025 states that “Pornography should be outlawed” and that LGBTQ-related content will be classified as pornography, with clear threats to imprison those who make it, and for educators and public librarians who “purvey it” to be classed as registered sex offenders. Already, states are creating laws that would imprison those who give a “harmful item (like an “inappropriate” book) to a minor. It’s another reason that the Comstock Act should be removed.
Action #1: Tell your legislators to vote the Comstock Act out of existence!
Minimal email/call script for REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATORS: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Rep./Sen. [___] to go futher than U.S. House Resolution H.Con.Res.33 – Freedom to Decide Act and repeal the poisonous Comstock Act.
MORE script if you want it: Our Supreme Court is obviously willing to overturn decades-old precedent and state legislatures rushed to apply decades-old laws the moment Roe v. Wade was overturned. Not only is medication abortion at risk, but the GOP’s Project 2025 is defining LGBTQ content as a form of pornography, another Comstock target. It’s time you brought forward a new bill to remove Title 18 U.S. Code § 1461-1464, in its entirety.
Action #2: Stop their ability to hunt us down!
Towns in Red states are re-labeling driving through them as “abortion trafficking.”
Minimal email/call script for REPRESENTATIVES: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Rep. [___] to know that I am alarmed that attorneys general are hunting down people seeking legal reproductive and gender-affirming care through medical records and other forms of data and are now attempting to stop free travel through the country. Are you ready to write down a list? I would like to thank [Rep. Brownley/Rep. Carbajal] for cosponsoring:
- H.R.3420 – My Body, My Data Act of 2023
- H.R.782 – Ensuring Women’s Right to Reproductive Freedom Act
- H.R.12 – The Women’s Health Protection Act – restoring the national right to abortion
Also I want [him/her] to cosponsor:
Minimal email/callscript for SENATORS: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Sen. [___] to know that I am alarmed that 19 state attorneys general are hunting down people seeking legal reproductive and gender-affirming care through medical records and other forms of data. Are you ready to write down a list? I would like the senator to cosponsor:
- S.631 – UPHOLD Privacy Act of 2023 (No CA cosponsors yet)
- S.1656 – My Body, My Data Act of 2023 (No CA cosponsors yet)
- S.2576 – Fourth Amendment is not for Sale (No CA cosponsors yet)
- S.323 – SAFER Health Act of 2023 but I’d like it to be amended to cover gender-affirming care as well.
- I thank [him/her] for cosponsoring
Contacts (Pick yours) Keep calling until a live person picks up.
Deeper Dive – Check out the Project 2025 parts dealing with women’s bodies!
Project 2025 is a Christian Nationalist takeover. This video explain how far they will go. These people are discussing mprisonment and/or the death penalty for women, minors and doctors for abortions and use of contraceptives they deem to be abortifacients, and for destroying embryos not used in IVF. No exceptions for incest or rape, and women must wait for imminent danger to their lives before a doctor can save her.
(Page numbers are from Project 2025, Chapter 14: tinyurl.com/Project-2025-Dept-of-HHS)
- (Pg. 450) “Goal #1: Protecting Life, Conscience, and Bodily Integrity.”
- “The Secretary should pursue a robust agenda to protect the fundamental right to life, protect conscience rights, and uphold bodily integrity rooted in biological realities, not ideology.“
- Ironically, Project 2025 itself is an expression of the extreme ideology of Christian Nationalism. In no part of this section, are a persons’ rights to not be pregnant, or to not be injured or die during pregnancy or while giving birth mentioned.
- (Pg. 454-5) “The CDC should eliminate programs and projects that do not respect human life and conscience rights and that undermine family formation.” How?
- Wasting tax dollars to fund “studies into the risks and complications of abortion.”
- Risk of death associated with childbirth is 14x higher than that with abortion.
- Wasting tax dollars comparing “health and psychological benefits of childbirth” vs. that of “Intentionally taking a human life through abortion.”
- Scientific research from around the world shows having an abortion is not linked to mental health issues but restricting access does.
- Boosting public messaging about the “unsurpassed effectiveness” of modern fertility awareness–based methods (FABMs) of family planning
- False: FABMs typical-use failure rates range from 2% to 34% and perfect-use failure rates ranging from less than 1% to 5%. Other contraceptives are better.
- Pg. 455) Increase mandatory surveillance of women’s bodies and remove funding from states that do not submit abortion data (CA, Maryland, New Hampshire) Reporting will allow states to prosecute their residents who travel for reproductive services outside their borders and criminalize miscarriage. Reporting must include: gestational age of “child.” (embryo/fetus are correct terms), mother’s state of residence (to report her for “abortion tourism”), and abortion methodology which is to be separated into categories: spontaneaous miscarriage (these will assuredly be investigated for possible criminal charges), incidental death due to medical treatments such as chemotherapy, stillbirths (also suspicious), induced abortions (“Harlots!”)
- (Pg. 457-8) Reverse FDA approval of chemical abortion drugs as want women to think they are unsafe.
- (Pg. 459) Immediately reimpose old regulations that required the pill be dispensed in-person, under a doctor’s supervision, requiring 3 visits, and shorten the timing to 7 weeks, instead of 10.
- (Pg. 459) Stop all distribution of abortion drugs through postal mail by reactivating the 150-year old misgynistic Comstock Act. Health care providers, distributors — and even pregnant women themselves — could be arrested and prosecuted for sending or receiving the abortion medication and emergency contraception in the mail.
- Their efforts to deny women reproductive control will not stop with abortion pills. Forced-birthers believe that the following are also abortifacients: oral contraceptives (birth control pills), intra-uterine devices (IUDs), both copper & hormonal, hormonal patches, shots, implants, vaginal rings and Plan B emergency contraceptive.
- (Pg. 471) Prohibit abortion travel funding.
- (Pg. 471) Prohibit Planned Parenthood and all other providers of elective abortions from receiving Medicaid funds.
- (Pg. 472) Withdraw Medicaid funds for states that require abortion insurance or that discriminate in violation of the Weldon Amendment.
- (Pg. 472) Penalize California for it’s intention to “discriminate against pharmacies that do not carry chemical abortion drugs outside of California.”
- (Pg. 473) Inserting the “unborn child” as a protected class over the life and wellbeing of the mother to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.
- (Pg. 485) Eliminate the week-after-pill from the contraceptive mandate as a potential abortifacient.
What did Trump do in his first term?
(Source: https://civilrights.org/trump-rollbacks/)
2017
- March 6: A week after Trump called on lawmakers to repeal the Affordable Care Act during his address to Congress, House Republicans released a proposal to replace the ACA with a law that would end the Medicaid program as we know it and defund Planned Parenthood.
- April 13: Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which overturned the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ final rule updating the regulations governing the Title X family planning program – a vital source of family planning and related preventive care for low-income, uninsured, and young people across the country.
- May 4: Trump signed an executive order that he claimed overturned the Johnson Amendment (though it did not), which precludes tax-exempt organizations, including places of worship, from engaging in any political campaign activity and would curtail the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act.
2018
- May 22: The Trump administration issued a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) designed to block access to health care under Title X and deny women information about their reproductive health care options.
2019
- Feb. 22: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule to significantly undermine the Title X family planning program’s ability to properly serve its patients and to provide its hallmark quality care. The rule’s provisions will have far-reaching implications for all Title X-funded programs, the services provided, and the ability of patients to seek and receive high-quality, confidential family planning and preventive health care services.
- May 22: The Dept. of Health and Human Services announced a final rule to allow health workers to cite religious or moral objections to deny care to patients, which will substantially harm the health and well-being of many people in America – particularly women and transgender patients.
- Aug. 15: The Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) unveiled a proposal that would allow government contractors to fire LGBTQ employees, or workers who are pregnant and unmarried, based on the employers’ religious views.
2020
- Jan. 3: The Trump administration filed a brief in June Medical Services v. Gee, urging the Court to allow a Louisiana abortion access law to go into effect. The civil rights community filed briefs urging the Court to strike down the restrictive law, highlighting the law’s impact on Black women.
- Jan. 23: The Department of State announced a new regulation aimed at denying pregnant people visas to prevent them from traveling to the United States. The regulation represents an attack against pregnant people living in countries without access to the Visa Waiver Program and immigrant women, particularly those of color, and with low incomes.
- Aug. 19: The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) released an updated draft policy on gender and women’s empowerment that eliminated any reference to transgender people or contraceptives.
- Aug. 26: Eric Dreiband, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, sent letters to the governors of Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York (all Democrats) requesting information under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) about the coronavirus response of public nursing homes in their states. The move, which occurred during the Republican National Convention, was viewed as a political move targeting Democrats to distract from the president’s failed response to the pandemic.
Resources
(Vox) The unconstitutional plan to stop women from traveling out of state for an abortion, explained
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