Huffman, Raskin Sound Alarm on Project 2025 Plan to Attack Reproductive Freedom

Trump’s Project 2025 would revive zombie legislation, weaponizing Comstock Act to ban abortion nationwide

July 18, 2024

Today, U.S. Representatives Jared Huffman (CA-02) and Jamie Raskin (MD-08), Co-Chairs of the Congressional Freethought Caucus and Founders of the Stop Project 2025 Task Force, sent a letter to President Joe Biden to call attention to extreme MAGA Republican’s attempts to resurrect a Victorian-era law, the Comstock Act of 1873, to advance their attacks on reproductive health care. The lawmakers requested the president issue a pardon and an apology to any Americans whose fundamental rights were unjustly violated in the past by an unconstitutional application of the Comstock Act, including women seeking contraception and abortions, champions of reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ Americans, and free speech advocates.

This request comes as new reports are surfacing that Senator JD Vance has called for the DOJ to use the antiquated Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion-related materials – such as mifepristone – and potentially prosecute physicians, pharmacists, and others who provide patients with lifesaving reproductive health care.

“Thankfully, over the course of the 20th century, the Supreme Court largely overturned most of the Comstock Act through landmark decisions on free speech, abortion, and birth control. However, many of these decisions have been eroded and attacked by the Supreme Court and the dark history of persecution leaves a lasting scar on our constitutional republic. MAGA activists are now working to resuscitate this near-dormant law to advance their far-right agenda. We urge you to issue a proclamation to rectify these past injustices and to send a clear message that your administration stands against cynical efforts to dust off this obsolete and unconstitutional law to undermine Americans’ individual liberties,” Reps. Huffman and Raskin said in their letter.

Using the Comstock Act to strip away abortion rights is a key pillar of Trump and extreme MAGA Republican’s Project 2025.

“Today, in the wake of the devastating Dobbs decision to overturn Roe, anti-abortion extremists are scheming to strip women nationwide of their reproductive freedom by enforcing a radical interpretation of this zombie law. The Project 2025 agenda includes a detailed blueprint for a future Republican president to impose a backdoor national abortion ban with a stroke of the pen by willfully misapplying this antiquated and unconstitutional statute. It lays the groundwork for Trump, or another president, to effectively ban abortion in every state by circumventing Congress and overriding state protections,” the letter states.

“As Members of Congress, we strenuously oppose this planned and aggressive misinterpretation of the law. Congress, federal courts, and the Department of Justice have uniformly concluded that Comstock does not apply to lawful abortions. This view was clearly outlined in an Office of Legal Counsel Memo. However, we fear that a future administration hostile to reproductive freedom could attempt to overturn this precedent and revive and misuse Comstock to deny all women their rights without congressional action,” said the members.

For a full copy of the letter, click here.

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