The Comstock Act; and Ways You Can Help Kamala Harris Win
Trump has flipped from pro-choice in 1999 to pro-life during his first term. Now he'd rather the subject just go away so he doesn't have to deal with it.
On page 562 of Project 2025 is a policy position that is recommended by the Heritage Foundation for Donald Trump if he regains the Oval Office. It's part of the Comstock Act, an 1873 law that prohibits mailing abortifacients.
“Announcing a Campaign to Enforce the Criminal Prohibitions in 18 U.S. Code §§ 1461 and 1462 Against Providers and Distributors of Abortion Pills That Use the Mail. Federal law prohibits mailing "[e]very article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion."75 Following the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs, there is now no federal prohibition on the enforcement of this statute. The Department of Justice in the next conservative Administration should therefore announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and distributors of such pills.”
Trump has been doing his best imitation of a crawfish any time he's asked about abortion. Here's his answer to a question about the Comstock Act asked by CBS’ Caitlin Huey-Burns. “No. We will be discussing specifics of it, but generally speaking, no.” What is “discussing specifics?” Trump is known for his “alternative facts.” 30,573 of them in his first term, according to the Washington Post. He has flip flopped so many times on this issue trying to stay out of hot water that I don't have enough fingers and toes to count them.
Here's a timeline of Trump's vacillating abortion positions:
October, 1999, pro-choice.
February, 2011 pro-life.
February, 2016 defund Planned Parenthood.
March, 2016 punishment for women who have an abortion.
October, 2016 promised to overturn Roe v. Wade.
January, 2017 nominated Neil Gorsuch.
July, 2018 nominated Brett Kavanaugh.
September, 2020 nominated Amy Coney Barrett.
June, 2022 said God overturned Roe v. Wade.
September, 2023 speaks of compromise.
March, 2024 voices support for a 15 week abortion ban.
He keeps talking about retribution. It isn't likely that it would be very hard for his staffers to talk him into signing an executive order. An order aligning with Project 2025’s interpretation of Comstock.
What prompted digging into this was a meme found on the Harris-Walz Discord server.
I found out about it in a roundabout way from a text message from the Kamala Harris campaign. They're really pulling out all the stops to get voters involved in the campaign.
We are in the final two week window and there are a number of ways that we can each help. I found out about Reach.vote from that text message, went through the Zoom meeting and I'm now signed up. However, there’s also the Discord server that I mentioned earlier. I may end up using it more, as it seemed to be a bit more oriented toward social media.
Here are just a few sites with more information about how you can help get your friends, family and acquaintances to the voting booth.
The first is the Zoom meeting where they walk you through using Reach and get you started. Reach is a multipurpose online tool that lets you tailor your approach to your friends from both ends of the political spectrum and the ones in the middle.
https://events.democrats.org/event/703304/
Hitting the D with a circle in the upper left corner shifts to the home page, with a mix of different areas that need volunteers to work phone banks, pep rallys and local campaigns that you can join. Or here's the URL.
https://events.democrats.org/
Another campaign site has phone banks plus a link to the the Discord server with all the social media goodies.
https://go.kamalaharris.com/
A couple of weeks ago Robert Hubbell’s Substack made the case for North Carolina being a possible Harris-Walz win. They are still doing virtual phone banking and need volunteers and donations.
https://www.meckdems.org/take-action/volunteer
I'm sure that I've missed a ton of great places to volunteer or donate. Feel free to add your favorites in the comments. Thank you for reading and getting folks to the polls. The Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise we'll have our first Madame President on January 20. Kamala Harris will be a great president.
Notes/Comstock Act:
https://19thnews.org/2022/01/congress-codify-abortion-roe/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-comstock-act-restrict-abortion.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/generally-speaking-no-trump-whether-103113520.html
https://www.vox.com/politics/373485/project-2025-abortion-ban-trump-comstock-mifepristone
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/opinion/trump-comstock-act-abortion.html#
Thanks, Robert! This is an excellent piece to get readers thinking and planning what we can do to help Harris & Walz, laying a good foundation for positive action now, in these critical last days before the election is over!
Thank you for reading and commenting. We're all doing whatever we can to get Kamala Harris and Tim Walz elected. Again, thank you for doing your part in getting their campaign across the finish line.