A coalition of advocacy groups wrote Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) this week urging him to hold a vote on a proposal to prevent a future Trump administration from reinstating a long-abandoned law that effectively bans abortion.
letterThe bill, which was revealed exclusively to The Hill, was signed by a range of groups that support abortion rights and court reform.
“Trump's appointees to future administrations are eager to weaponize the Comstock Act as soon as possible,” the letter read. “We must stop them now.”
“We urge abortion opponents to show their true colors,” the group continued. “Put Stop Comstock on the ballot and stop this dangerous law from being weaponized before it's too late.”
The Stop Comstock Act, introduced in June by Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), seeks to repeal the abortion provisions of an 1873 federal law that bans sending abortion-related materials through the mail.
Some experts say the law is outdated, but abortion rights activists have warned that a Republican administration could try to use it to effectively ban abortion without congressional action.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, representing the Supreme Court's conservative wing, have indicated their intention to reinstate the law.
“Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republicans have worked tirelessly to limit and eliminate access to abortion on a state-by-state basis,” the letter reads, “but they intend to go even further: in published interviews and in their Project 2025 blueprint for a future Trump administration, they have made clear their intention to misapply the Comstock Law of 1873 and ban abortion nationwide.”
The Hill has reached out to Schumer's office for comment.
Signatories include Take Back the Court Action Fund, Healthcare Across Borders, Abortion Access Front, Lawyers for Good Government, UltraViolet Action, Access Reproductive Justice, Center for Genetics and Society, Chicago Women's AIDS Project, Health Not Prisons Collective, Positive Women's Network-USA, and Good Health Community Programmes.
The former president has attempted to shift tack on the issue of abortion in recent weeks, calling Project 2025's abortion proposals “too much.” His running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), has also suggested that Trump would veto any nationwide abortion ban.
“Trump's ever-changing daily attitudes and desperate attempts to distance himself from his anti-abortion record say two things: First, he knows the American people do not support his party's national anti-abortion campaign. Second, he is afraid,” Sarah Lipton Lubet, executive director of the Reclaim the Courts Action Fund, said in a statement.
“But we all know what decisions President Trump and Republicans in Congress will make when the time comes,” she added.
