An 1873 law banned the mailing of boxing photos. Could it block abortion pills, too?

BY: JENNIFER SHUTT
APRIL 5, 2024

WASHINGTON — An anti-obscenity law enacted in 1873 that hasn’t been enforced in decades shot to the forefront of the nation’s abortion debate in the past week thanks to two U.S. Supreme Court justices, amid expectations a future Republican president would use the law to order a nationwide ban on medication abortion.

The Comstock Act, which prohibited the mailing of anatomy textbooks and boxing photographs as well as contraceptives, drew fresh attention after Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas during March 26 oral arguments seemed to suggest the law would block the mailing of mifepristone.

Continued: https://missouriindependent.com/2024/04/05/an-1873-law-banned-the-mailing-of-boxing-photos-could-it-block-abortion-pills-too/

USA – The Current Attack on Abortion Pills Will Fail. The Next One Will Be So Much Worse.

BY DAHLIA LITHWICK AND MARK JOSEPH STERN
MARCH 26, 2024

There are always a couple of tells when the most conservative Supreme Court in more than a century finds itself adjudicating a truly mortifying and meritless case. One is that it’s coming up by way of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, a court that so consistently shovels its worst constitutional garbage upward that the high court conservatives are often forced to reluctantly lob it back. Another tell is when the facts of the case are so laugh-out-loud insane that even conservative justices can’t bring themselves to adopt them or the underpinning legal reasoning with a straight face. There’s yet a third tell: when the conservative justices start injecting a bunch of nonsense and randomized pet peeves into oral argument to distract from how embarrassing it would be to discuss the merits of the actual case.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/mifepristone-supreme-court-alito-national-abortion-ban.html

Federal judges grill Biden administration on abortion pill

During a two-hour oral argument, the judges appeared sympathetic to an anti-abortion medical group seeking to revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN and JOSH GERSTEIN
05/17/2023

NEW ORLEANS — Three federal judges seemed poised to rule against the Biden administration in its efforts to preserve access to the abortion drug mifepristone.

During an occasionally combative, two-hour hearing Wednesday before a panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges — all Republican appointees — grilled attorneys from the Justice Departments and Danco Laboratories, the pill’s manufacturer, who are battling to keep the drug available in the U.S.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/17/federal-judges-appear-skeptical-of-biden-administration-in-abortion-pills-case-00097477