Trump Allies Plan New Sweeping Abortion Restrictions

His supporters are seeking to attack abortion rights and abortion access from a variety of angles should he regain the White House, including using a long-dormant law from 1873.

By Lisa Lerer and Elizabeth Dias
Feb. 17, 2024

Allies of former President Donald J. Trump and officials who served in his administration are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a national ban or the laws enacted in conservative states across the country.

Behind the scenes, specific anti-abortion plans being proposed by Mr. Trump’s allies are sweeping and legally sophisticated. Some of their proposals would rely on enforcing the Comstock Act, a long-dormant law from 1873, to criminalize the shipping of any materials used in an abortion — including abortion pills, which account for the majority of abortions in America.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/17/us/politics/trump-allies-abortion-restrictions.html

The New Threat to Abortion Access in the United States—The Comstock Act

I. Glenn Cohen, JD; Eli Y. Adashi, MD, MS; Mary Ziegler, JD
JAMA. Published online July 13, 2023. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.9360

In the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, there have been many legislative attempts to restrict abortion, as well as lawsuits seeking to buttress those initiatives or further restrict abortion. Such litigation has centered, among other things, on whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act overrides potentially conflicting state laws that seek to limit abortion exceptions for the health and life of the mother, whether the US Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone was unlawful, and whether abortion bans violate various state constitutions.

In this Viewpoint we discuss an issue that that has received less attention and is being litigated in several courts—the Comstock Act. … We explain the history of this old law, its use by those seeking to restrict abortion, and why it threatens abortion access in the US.

Continued: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2807457

13.07.2023

Editorial

Comstock Act

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

Jonathan F. Mitchell

mailing abortion pills

USA – THE FIRST “WRONGFUL DEATH” CASE FOR HELPING A FRIEND GET AN ABORTION

The lawsuit’s long game — beyond instilling fear — is establishing fetal personhood, the holy grail of the anti-abortion movement.

Mary Tuma
April 26 2023

“YOUR HELP MEANS the world to me,” a grateful Brittni Silva texted her best friends, Jackie Noyola and Amy Carpenter, last July. “I’m so lucky to have y’all. Really.”

A month after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Houston mother of two experienced an unplanned pregnancy with her now ex-husband and allegedly sought abortion care with the help of her friends. For nearly a year, Texas had imposed a six-week abortion ban, and a full “trigger” ban would be enacted in just a few weeks. Silva needed to act fast and extricate herself from what appeared to be an emotionally unhealthy relationship with a husband she would go on to divorce in February. Her friends offered their unwavering support.

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2023/04/26/abortion-wrongful-death-texas-lawsuit/

Behind the Texas Abortion Law, a Persevering Conservative Lawyer

Jonathan Mitchell has never had a high profile in the anti-abortion movement, but he developed and promoted the legal approach that has flummoxed the courts and enraged abortion rights supporters.

By Michael S. Schmidt
Sept. 12, 2021

Jonathan F. Mitchell grew increasingly dismayed as he read the Supreme Court’s decision in June 2016 striking down major portions of a Texas anti-abortion bill he had helped write.

Not only had the court gutted the legislation, which Mr. Mitchell had quietly worked on a few years earlier as the Texas state government’s top appeals court lawyer, but it also had called out his attempt to structure the law in a way that would prevent judicial action to block it, essentially saying: nice try.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/12/us/politics/texas-abortion-lawyer-jonathan-mitchell.html

With ban in effect, Texas abortion clinics will no longer terminate pregnancies after 6 weeks

By Caroline Kitchener, Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow
Sep 1, 2021

AUSTIN — A Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy went into effect Wednesday, as a midnight deadline for the Supreme Court to stop it came and went without action.

The court could still grant a request from abortion providers to halt the law, one of the nation’s most restrictive. But for now, abortion providers in Texas, including Planned Parenthood and Whole Woman’s Health, said they will no longer terminate pregnancies more than six weeks from a woman’s last period.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/texas-six-week-abortion-ban/2021/09/01/e53cf372-0a6b-11ec-a6dd-296ba7fb2dce_story.html