Congressional Republicans, led by Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, are urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce laws prohibiting the mail-order distribution of abortifacients.
The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) released a memo Jan. 3 arguing that the distribution of drugs such as mifepristone or misoprostol does not violate federal law. The 19th century Comstock Act prohibits individuals from mailing content that is considered indecent, and the 1994 omnibus crime bill specifically bans mailing anything “designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.” OLC argued that the drugs are legal at the federal level and have other recognized medical usage, so they should not be banned from the mail.
“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. The OLC memo should be immediately rescinded or, at minimum, redrafted to articulate an accurate application of the law,” Lankford and 40 other Republicans wrote Wednesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller.
Read the letter here:
Letter to Garland With Signers Final 1.25.23[6] by Michael Ginsberg on Scribd
The Biden administration has worked to expand access to abortifacients, particularly in the aftermath of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision. The Food and Drug Administration overturned a Trump administration rule prohibiting mifepristone from being distributed through the mail in April 2021, and the agency began allowing the drug to be distributed over-the-counter in January. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans Call On FDA To Rescind Changes Giving More Access To Over-The-Counter Abortion Pills)
Many Democrats have pushed the Biden administration to go further in expanding abortion access in states that limit or ban the procedure. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urged the federal government to build abortion clinics in national parks and other federal lands. Such actions would likely be prohibited by the Hyde Amendment, which bans the federal government from funding abortions.
Congressional Democrats have repeatedly failed to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would legalize abortion up to the moment of birth and eliminate conscience protections for doctors and nurses.
“The OLC memo only serves to further the deeply troubling proliferation of illegal mail-order abortion drug trafficking operations that operate both openly and covertly and endanger the lives of pregnant moms and their preborn babies,” the Republicans add. “The reckless distribution of abortion drugs by mail or other carriers to pregnant mothers who have not been examined in-person by a physician is not only dangerous and unsafe, it is criminal.”