Abortion Pills For Everyone! (Almost!) Tiny American Flags For The Rest!

Much news in your reproductive rights roundup!

Lots happening this week!

USPS Free To Mail Abortion Pills, Even To Your Stupid State That Doesn't Allow Abortion

The Department of Justice's Office of the Legal Counsel determined this week that sending abortion pills through the mail is not a violation of section 1461. This section of the law is derived from the 1873 Comstock Act, a very stupid and censorious piece of legislation created by "anti-vice crusader" and former US Postal Inspector Anthony Comstock, who spent most of his life being very, very mad about other people having sex. In fact, he was so deeply opposed to sex that even his facial hair functioned as a prophylactic.

File: Anthony Comstock.jpg - Wikipedia    en.wikipedia.org 

Via DOJ:  

In its current form, section 1461, which is derived from section 2 of the 1873 Act, begins by declaring “[e]very obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance” to be “nonmailable matter” that “shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any post office or by any letter carrier.” 18 U.S.C. § 1461. The next clauses declare nonmailable “[e]very article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; and [e]very article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose.”

The Supreme Court rendered the law's restrictions on the mailing of birth control null and void in their 1965 decision Griswold vs. Connecticut .

The Department of Justice has determined that because the pills can be used for other purposes and the sender cannot know that the recipient will be using them to violate their state's law on abortion, the pills can be sent through the mail. Unfortunately, this does not provide any legal protection to the recipients, who may find themselves in prison (or owing their nosy neighbor $10,000) in certain states should they take the pills to end a pregnancy.

Pharmacies Now Allowed To Dole Out Abortion Pills

For many years, for literally no reason, patients seeking medication abortions were required to get the Mifepristone and Misoprostol cocktail directly from their doctors instead of from a pharmacy like any other prescription. There was no actual medical reason for this beyond "some people don't like abortions and want it to be more difficult to get them."

Misoprostol has long been dispensed by pharmacies for a variety of health conditions, but Mifepristone, as it is used only for abortions, has not.

This, however, is finally changing this week as patients will now be able to get their abortion medication from retail pharmacies, so long as they get "certified" to dispense Mifepristone. Anti-choice groups are naturally quite mad about this and yet seem unable to offer any concrete reason why pharmacies should not dispense these medications beyond "we don't like abortions and want it to be more difficult to get them."

“The Biden administration has once again proved that it values abortion industry profits over women’s safety and unborn children’s lives,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-life America , told the  New York Times  . “Abortion activists want to turn every post office and pharmacy into an abortion business, and the Biden F.D.A. is a willing participant.”

She did not mention what, exactly, she imagined the threat to women's safety was — probably because there isn't one.

Texas Teens No Longer Allowed To Get Birth Control From Title X Clinics Without Parental Permission

A 2014 study, conducted not long after the Obama administration made birth control free (or fully covered by insurance) for everyone, showed that when teenagers have access to free birth control and are educated about birth control, teen pregnancy rates plunge. Most of us would consider that a good thing! Also, you know, common sense.

For many years now, Title X clinics across the country have been offering free birth control to anyone who needs it — even in states that require teens to get parental permission to get it from their doctors. But that's about to change in Texas, where US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk recently ruled that parental permission will be required to get birth control at these clinics as well, claiming that the rule violates "parents’ rights and state and federal law."

Kacsmaryk, a former "religious liberty" lawyer, ruled in favor of Alexander Deanda, a father who says he is raising his three daughters “in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality, which requires unmarried children to practice abstinence and refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage.” Unless, you know, their father decides to offer them up to be gang raped in order to protect some angels, even though the angels were clearly able to protect themselves by blinding everyone in the town anyway.

Deanda contended that the Title X program violated the Texas Family Code and the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment by denying him the “fundamental right to control and direct the upbringing of his minor children." To be clear, his daughters have not been to a Title X clinic, that he admits — and denying them access to birth control will not in any way ensure that they will "practice abstinence and refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage." It just means that if they don't, they'll be a lot more likely to get pregnant.

Texas already has the ninth highest rate of teen pregnancy in the United States and indeed leads the nation in teenagers who have had more than one pregnancy.

This is an especially noxious ruling in light of the fact that abortion is no longer accessible in the state of Texas. It's also part of a disturbing trend of conservative parents demanding a freakish amount of control over their children's lives, identities, and education, which is not likely something that is going to end well for any of them.

The US Department of Health and Human Services is asking the court to reconsider the decision.

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