JD Vance joined GOP letter urging DOJ to enforce Comstock Act to ban mailing abortion pills

Samantha Putterman
Updated ·4 min read
2

Elizabeth Warren

Statement: “JD Vance actually sent a letter last year to the Department of Justice saying, ‘enforce the Comstock Act.’”

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said she isn’t buying the Republican presidential ticket’s position on abortion.NBC "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker asked Warren on Aug. 25 what she thought of former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, saying in an earlier interview that Trump wouldn’t sign a federal abortion ban.Warren said, "American women are not stupid," and that the candidates have an anti-abortion track record.

"JD Vance actually sent a letter last year to the Department of Justice saying, ‘enforce the Comstock Act,’" Warren said. "And remember, he did that, and then Donald Trump picked him to be his vice president."

The Comstock Act is an 1873 anti-vice law that bans the mailing of "obscene" materials. Anti-abortion advocates have tried to resurrect the law to prohibit sending materials such as abortion-inducing medication and surgical equipment.

Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren

In January 2023, Vance joined about 40 congressional Republicans in sending a letter urging the U.S. Justice Department to enforce the Comstock Act to crack down on mailing abortion pills, which are used in the majority of U.S. abortions.The letter Vance signed was in response to the release of a Justice Department memo saying U.S. law doesn’t prohibit the mailing of abortion medication as long as the sender doesn’t intend for the medication to be used illegally."Because there are manifold ways in which recipients in every state may lawfully use such drugs, including to produce an abortion, the mere mailing of such drugs to a particular jurisdiction is an insufficient basis for concluding that the sender intends them to be used unlawfully," Christopher Schroeder, assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in the Dec. 23, 2022, memo.

The Justice Department was studying the question after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022 and the U.S. Postal Service asked the department to address whether the Comstock Act criminalizes the mailing of mifepristone, the first pill in a two-drug regimen for a medication abortion.

But Vance and other Republicans said the Justice Department’s interpretation departed from the law’s plain-text meaning."We demand that you act swiftly and in accordance with the law, shut down all mail-order abortion operations," Vance and fellow Republican lawmakers wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Signatories included current House Speaker Mike Johnson from Louisiana, Florida Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The Republicans cited other federal criminal conspiracy and money laundering laws and asked the department to rescind or redraft the memo. They said department officials should hold accountable physicians, pharmacists and others "who break the Federal mail-order abortion laws" and demanded it cease its efforts to "prevent States from regulating or prohibiting abortion drugs."

On July 7, Vance told NBC he supported access to abortion medication, citing a June Supreme Court ruling that left mifepristone on the market. But the court rejected a legal challenge of the pill’s FDA approval on procedural grounds, not on the case’s merits. Thus, the court could face the question again.

Since becoming the Republican vice presidential nominee, Vance hasn’t weighed in specifically on the Comstock Act.

PolitiFact contacted the Trump campaign but did not hear back.

"We demand that you act swiftly and in accordance with the law, shut down all mail-order abortion operations," U.S. Sen. JD Vance and fellow Republican lawmakers wrote in a January 2023 letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
"We demand that you act swiftly and in accordance with the law, shut down all mail-order abortion operations," U.S. Sen. JD Vance and fellow Republican lawmakers wrote in a January 2023 letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

PolitiFact's ruling

Warren said Vance sent a letter to the Justice Department asking it to enforce the Comstock Act.Vance in 2023 signed onto a letter to the department with about 40 other Republicans. The letter challenged the department’s interpretation of the law and demanded that it shut down all mailing of abortion pills.

Since becoming the Republican vice presidential candidate, Vance has said he supports a Supreme Court decision that left abortion medication on the market.Warren’s statement is accurate. We rate it True.

Our sources

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: JD Vance asked DOJ to enforce Comstock Act, ban mailing abortion pills