Matt Gaetz and Comstockery

There is going to be nothing more ironic than Matt Fucking Gaetz enforcing the Comstock Act, but that’s the plan.

Antiabortion advocates are moving aggressively in the wake of the election to devise new measures to punish people and organizations that help women get abortions, feeling emboldened to crack down on the flow of abortion pills into states with bans and no longer burdened by fear of political backlash.

A leading national antiabortion organizationis seekinga meeting with Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department, to discuss prosecuting abortion pill providers under a long-dormant law from the 19th century.

A Texas lawmaker introduced a bill one week after the election that would allow private citizens to sue internet providers for hosting abortion pill websites, part of a broader legislative push to target online clinics.

And the largest antiabortion group in Texas is planning a new wave of legal action in early 2025,looking for men interested in suing people who helped their female partners get abortions.

“You will see lawsuits filed now that were strategically not filed before the election,” said John Seago, the president of Texas Right to Life, who has spent much of the past year sounding the alarm on the thousands of abortion pills flowing into Texas by mail. “We have donors who fund that stuff who said, ‘Let’s wait until after November.’”
Many Republicans had feared that the abortion issue would help Democrats clinch the White House, especially after a string of striking victories for abortion rights in both red and blue states in the years since Roe v. Wade was overturned. But President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans won by large margins, including in states with strict abortion bans,which Democrats had hoped would mobilize voters for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Antiabortion leaders are particularly energized by the prospect of their allies filling key posts in a Trump administration. While many were disappointed by Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who supports abortion rights, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, they have high hopes for a Justice Department led by Gaetz, who has an A+ rating from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an antiabortion group that grades Congress members on their support for the antiabortion cause.

The answer is going to be that people are going to have to be willing to break the law and, yes, take the consequences for this. People don’t actually want this. Sorry folks, just donating to the Democrats and writing postcards to voters is not going to be enough anymore. We are beyond that. The civil rights movements provide plenty of example of how to do this.