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John,
As anti-choice forces continue to gather momentum, one of the strongest weapons in their arsenal is a 150-year-old law known as the Comstock Act of 1873.
This law made it illegal to distribute “obscene, lewd or lascivious,” “immoral,” or “indecent” publications through the mail, but the definition of obscenity is so general that it includes anything having to do with sex, contraception or abortion. It also outlawed the selling, giving away, receiving, or possession of such materials.
The abortion-related implications were rendered irrelevant for decades by Roe v. Wade, but now that the Supreme Court has struck down these protections, the Comstock Act is enjoying a resurgence among the radical right as a means of limiting women’s access to abortion.
As the GOP-backed case seeking to eliminate FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone proceeds through the courts, and other cases to further restrict access are lined up behind it, the Comstock Act underlies many of their potentially successful arguments.
It’s unacceptable that an archaic 150-year-old law based in long-ago rejected attitudes should continue to undergird modern challenges to women’s basic reproductive rights. Add your voice now to demand that Congress repeal the Comstock Act immediately!
The act was named for Anthony Comstock, a New York City vice officer who was charged with enforcing it in that state. In the 1870’s, Comstock arrested Ezra Heywood, a feminist who wrote Cupid’s Yokes, asserting the right of women to control their own bodies. Convicted of obscenity, Heywood was sentenced to two years hard labor.
Publisher D.M. Bennett, who received a copy of the book in the mail, was convicted and sentenced to 13 months. President Rutherford B. Hayes pardoned the author, Heywood, after 6 months in jail, but he refused to pardon Bennett despite the largest petition campaign of the 19th century, with over 200,000 signatures. In his diaries, Hayes later admitted he had made a mistake, and said the book was “not obscene.”
Comstock also vigorously prosecuted dozens of doctors who were arrested and convicted for supplying patients with materials explaining how to prevent pregnancy. In the 1930’s, activist Margaret Sanger faced prison for her work establishing birth control clinics, but she was ultimately successful in getting the act’s birth control provisions overturned in the 1936 case United States v. One Package.
Despite the weakening of its birth control provisions, the law’s prohibition of possession of information or materials related to abortion still stands. It’s shocking to recognize that the same law that led to the prosecution and imprisonment of authors, publishers, and doctors in the 1870s could still be used in the 2020s to derail women’s rights to reproductive freedom.
The Comstock Act must be immediately repealed. Democrats in Congress need to introduce a bill as soon as possible. Force a vote. Attach the repeal as an amendment to other bills. Talk about it to voters. Match the urgency of the threat however they can. Please sign the petition now.
The United States is overwhelmingly a prochoice nation. It’s up to us to demand Congress get this done.
Thank you for joining us in this fight!
- Amanda
Amanda Ford, Director
Democracy for America
Advocacy Fund
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