Politics

DOJ says USPS is allowed to continue delivering abortion pills, even in states with abortion bans

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The Justice Department has decided that the U.S. Postal Service can continue delivering abortion medication, even in states with abortion bans.

The DOJ’s Office of the Legal Counsel wrote in an opinion that pills being sent through the mail is not in violation of the Comstock Act, which criminalized sending “obscene” material in the mail.

“We conclude that [the act] does not prohibit the mailing, or the delivery or receipt by mail, of mifepristone or misoprostol where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully,” said Christopher Schroder, the assistant attorney general for the OLC.

“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,” Schroder said.

Abortions drugs were creatwd in the 1970s as an alternative to surgical forms of abortion. One such drug, mifepristone, was authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000. The drug deprives the mother’s body of progesterone, which is a hormone needed for the fetus to survive.

Another drug, misoprostol, causes the uterus to contract and dilates the cervix, which will expel the embryo.

USPS said the opinion “confirms that the Comstock Act does not require the Postal Service to change our current practice, which has been to consider packages containing mifepristone and misoprostol to be mailable under federal law in the same manner as other prescription drugs.”

ARTICLE: PAUL MURDOCH

MANAGING EDITOR: CARSON CHOATE

PHOTO CREDITS: ABC NEWS

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Paul Murdoch

Paul, 37, is from Scotland in the UK, but currently lives and works in Bangkok. Paul has worked in different industries such as telemarketing, retail, hospitality, farming, insurance, and teaching, where he works now. He teaches at an all-girls High School in Bangkok. “It’s a lot of work, but I love my job.” Paul has an active interest in politics. His reason for writing for FBA is to offer people the facts and allow them to make up their own minds. Whilst he believes opinion columns have their place, it is also important that people can have accurate news with no bias.

Paul, 37, is from Scotland in the UK, but currently lives and works in Bangkok. Paul has worked in different industries such as telemarketing, retail, hospitality, farming, insurance, and teaching, where he works now. He teaches at an all-girls High School in Bangkok. “It’s a lot of work, but I love my job.” Paul has an active interest in politics. His reason for writing for FBA is to offer people the facts and allow them to make up their own minds. Whilst he believes opinion columns have their place, it is also important that people can have accurate news with no bias.

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