Justice Department clears Postal Service to carry abortion drugs into red states

[reACTIONary]

Source: Politico

The Justice Department has cleared the U.S. Postal Service to deliver abortion drugs to states that have strict limits on terminating pregnancy, and has offered limited assurances that a federal law addressing the issue won’t be used to prosecute people criminally over such mailings.

A legal opinion, from Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, concludes that a nearly 150-year-old statute aimed at fighting “vice” through the mail is not enforceable against mailings of abortion drugs as long as the sender does not know that the drugs will be used illegally.

“We conclude that [the statute] 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,” OLC chief Christopher Schroeder wrote in the 21-page opinion posted online Tuesday.

“There are manifold ways in which recipients in every state may use these drugs, including to produce an abortion, without violating state law,” Schroeder added. “Therefore, 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.”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/03/justice-department-postal-abortion-drugs-00076274

[machoneman]

1. Wow, I can hear the howling now from red state AG's! Let them holler, I say, and suck it!

[Diamond_Dog]

2. GOOD.

[ificandream]

3. I only wonder if the Repughs will try to stop this somehow.

I'm guessing they won't let a silly thing like a legal opinion stand in their way.

[ancianita]

5. There are laws about obstructing mail delivery and/or tampering with U.S. mail.

[Demobrat]

8. Yes.

Sure they will try.

[Upthevibe]

4. Kick. N/T

[Hekate]

6. Excellent news

[Warpy]

7. Good, it's nobody's damned business why someone might be taking that drug

and good luck to those flue nosed busybodies trying to get through HIPAA unless they can provide medical degrees and proof they are on the patient's care team.

It beats getting them over the net from eastern Europe or India, at least there's a better chance the domestic ones are the real thing.

[republianmushroom]

9. like it

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. K&R

[Martin68]

11. Most excellent!

[Tree Lady]

12. Does this mean with the red state laws

About fining people who help abortions they will go after mailmen?

[reACTIONary]

13. No, they can't, because...

... the mail carriers don't know what they are carrying.

You may have already read the article, but what it means is that the federal law against using the mail for purposes of vice can't be reasonably applied, so the post office will not be responsible for taking action against folks who mail the pills from another state.

There is still the possibility of being prosecuted by the AG in the state the pills are being sent to, but the weak link - snooping by the post office - has been eliminated.

[Chrysanthemum]

14. Surprised

I'm surprised that more people haven't posted comments in this thread.

This is such an important development. Women across the nation will be able to receive abortifacient medications and decide for themselves what they will do with them.

i'm happy for the DOJ's message. It may be just limited success on the long slog to reclaim the rights that were taken from us. But it's an important achievement for all the women who are helped by this.

[OldBaldy1701E]

15. And, this is going to stop someone like DeSantis or Abbott from doing what exactly?

They are forming personal brownshirt squads. They have flaunted the federal government many times already. Why should they or their ilk care about what the Feds say? Have we stopped either one for the interstate trafficking they committed? Have they even been fined??

[reACTIONary]

16. It stops states and congress..

... from putting pressure on the post office to go after folks who are surreptitiously distributing abortifacients to women in red states. It lends a level of support to the resistance.

[melm00se]

17. The law in question

is the Comstock Law of 1873.

The salient portion of the law is:

Sec. 2. That section one hundred and forty-eight of the act to revise, consolidate, and amend the statutes relating to the Post-office Department, approved June eighth, eighteen hundred and seventy-two, be amended to read as follows:

"Sec. 148. That no obscene, lewd, or lascivious book, pamphlet, picture, paper, print, or other publication of an indecent character, or any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion, nor any article or thing intended or adapted for any indecent or immoral use or nature, nor any written or printed card, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement or notice of any kind giving information, directly or indirectly, where, or how, or of whom, or by what means either of the things before mentioned may be obtained or made, nor any letter upon the envelope of which, or postal-card upon which indecent or scurrilous epithets may be written or printed, shall be carried in the mail, and any person who shall knowingly deposit, or cause to be deposited, for mailing or delivery, any of the hereinbefore-mentioned articles or things, or any notice, or paper containing any advertisement relating to the aforesaid articles or things, and any person who, in pursuance of any plan or scheme for disposing of any of the hereinbefore-mentioned articles or things, shall take, or cause to be taken, from the mail any such letter or package, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall, for every offense, be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five thousand dollars, or imprisoned at hard labor not less than one year or more than ten years, or both, in the discretion of the judge."

Federal court, to my knowledge, has overturned the birth control provision (United States v. One Package) but the abortion provision has not.

It could be argued that "drugs" in question are really contraceptives but I feel that this will be subject to judicial interpretation as to which category the drugs in question will fall: contraception or abortifacient.

[reACTIONary]

18. According to the article...

... the drugs in question have legal uses outside of being abortifacients, and in some cases are not illegal even as abortifacients, for instance in a state that has a very restrictive time period and exemptions such as rape, incest or threatened life. Someone sending these drugs, so the argument goes, may not have knowledge of their intended use or the circumstances of their use. It would therefore be unreasonable to make assumptions of illegal activity - at the federal level - from the mere sending of the drugs.

[melm00se]

19. I can almost guarantee

that state level law enforcement would disagree with the DOJ's interpretation which would set up a federal challenge to determine which interpretation is correct.

[reACTIONary]

20. I'm not an expert, but I think that...

... the Post Office is going to follow the guidelines of the DOJ, not state level law enforcement. The comstock law is a federal law, and the post office is a federal entity.

That doesn't mean the states won't try vigorously to enforce their law, it just means the post office isn't going to help them. And of course the states have no power to enforce Comstock.

The post office is really the weak link in the resistance and this strengthens their position.