{"id":2647745,"date":"2026-08-21T09:15:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T13:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigndoj-should-end-dangerous-loophole-shielding-illegal-abortion-drugs\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T09:26:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T13:26:36","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigndoj-should-end-dangerous-loophole-shielding-illegal-abortion-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigndoj-should-end-dangerous-loophole-shielding-illegal-abortion-drugs\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Should End Dangerous Loophole Shielding Abortion Drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigndoj-should-end-dangerous-loophole-shielding-illegal-abortion-drugs%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2647745&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the aggressive efforts of abortion advocates to promote the use of mifepristone, a drug used in most abortions today, despite its critically important health risks to women. It highlights how the FDA approved the drug under expedited procedures and subsequently relaxed safety regulations, including allowing online access without in-person medical supervision-measures criticized for endangering women\u2019s safety. A extensive study revealed that nearly 11% of women who took mifepristone experienced serious adverse events, far higher than publicly claimed.<\/p>\n<p>Legal and regulatory disputes are also addressed, focusing on the U.S. Postal Service and Justice Department\u2019s interpretations of the Comstock Act, which prohibits mailing abortion-related drugs.An opposing opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) falsely interprets the law to suggest that it only bans mailing if the sender intends for the recipient to use the drugs unlawfully-a standard deemed unsubstantiated by the law\u2019s text and Supreme Court rulings. Critics argue that this reinterpretation effectively neutralizes the law and undermines statutory clarity.<\/p>\n<p>Legal efforts by organizations like Advancing American Freedom challenge these reinterpretations, asserting that they distort congressional intent and threaten the safety of women and the rights of the unborn. The debate encapsulates broader concerns about law, public safety, and the integrity of judicial interpretation surrounding abortion pharmacology and mailing restrictions.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Abortion zealots don\u2019t let anything \u2014 not babies, the law, or even women\u2019s safety \u2014 get in their way. They ignore, or even try to cover up, the dangers of mifepristone, the drug causing almost two-thirds of abortions today. President Joe Biden\u2019s Justice Department tried to give the federal law prohibiting sending or receiving abortion drugs a bizarre spin by interpreting it in a way that would make it unenforceable. Attorney General Todd Blanche says he will re-examine that interpretation.<\/p>\n<p>The <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/18\/1461\">Comstock Act<\/a> (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1461 and <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/18\/1462\">1462<\/a>) prohibits sending or receiving, including through the mail, any \u201carticle or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.\u201d Mifepristone was developed in the 1980s specifically to cause abortion; it\u2019s not universally called the \u201cabortion pill\u201d for nothing.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also shockingly dangerous to women. In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned its importation for personal use in 1989 because of its serious risks. The FDA\u2019s own advisory committee said in March 1996 that if mifepristone were ever used, it had to be \u201cunder close medical supervision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Clinton administration\u2019s FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, but had to use a special fast-track process reserved for drugs that treat life-threatening illnesses. Its safety rules included obtaining and using mifepristone only in a physician\u2019s office. Using the Covid-19 pandemic as cover, abortion advocates sued in May 2020 to suspend the in<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/f-d-a-changes-policy-allows-abortion-pills-to-be-sent-through-mail-during-covid-19-pandemic\/\" title=\"F.D.A. Changes Policy, Allows ... Pills To Be Sent Through Mail During COVID-19 Pandemic\">-person dispensing requirement<\/a>. An Obama-appointed federal judge gave them what they wanted, and then, in a move that surprised no one, the Biden administration\u2019s FDA dropped this critical safety precaution in December 2021 without any mention of the pandemic. Finally, the Biden FDA approved obtaining mifepristone entirely online, without ever seeing a doctor in person.<\/p>\n<p>The FDA itself has tried to cover up how mifepristone harms women. The Obama FDA dropped the requirement that physicians report mifepristone complications unless they literally kill someone. Five years later, the Biden FDA dropped the in-person dispensing requirement because \u2014 wait for it \u2014 there was no evidence of nonfatal complications.<\/p>\n<p>Well, the evidence is coming in nonetheless, and it is horrifying. The Ethics and Public Policy Center led the most comprehensive study of abortion pill safety by examining <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=https:\/\/eppc.org\/mifepristone-study\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">more than 850,000 actual insurance claims<\/a> involving mifepristone abortions. They found the rate of \u201cserious adverse events,\u201d as defined by the National Institutes of Health, to be nearly 11 percent, more than 20 times higher than those who market mifepristone publicly claim.<\/p>\n<p>More than a dozen states have passed laws banning abortion drugs. Not content to keep abortion legal in the other states, abortion advocates have organized campaigns to ship these drugs into pro-life states, intentionally breaking the law and endangering more women.<\/p>\n<p>In June 2022, a week after the Supreme Court held that the Constitution does not protect any right to abortion, the U.S. Postal Service asked the Biden DOJ whether the Comstock Act prohibits mailing mifepristone. The Office of Legal Counsel responded with <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/olc\/opinion\/file\/1560596\/dl\">an opinion dated Dec. 23, 2022<\/a>, \u201cinterpreting\u201d the Comstock Act in a way that would be unrecognizable to the Congress that enacted it and, more importantly for abortion advocates, that renders it unenforceable today. This is the opinion that Blanche has promised to review.<\/p>\n<p>The OLC opinion claimed that the Comstock Act could be enforced only when the sender intends \u201cthat the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully.\u201d Since, of course, it is impossible to prove such intent, this spin would completely neutralize the Comstock Act.<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, the Comstock Act doesn\u2019t say anything about a sender\u2019s intent or a recipient\u2019s use, but is focused solely on defining things and objects that may not be sent through the mail. To this day, the Postal Inspection Service posts a list on its website of objects deemed <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=https:\/\/about.usps.com\/publications\/pub52\/pub52_c2_001.htm\">\u201cnon-mailable,\u201d<\/a> the same term that appears in the Comstock Act. The act says nothing about what a sender might have in mind or speculation about what a recipient might do with such an object.<\/p>\n<p>The rules for interpreting statutes are crystal clear, and they require, as the Supreme Court has explained, \u201cadhering to Congress\u2019s intended meaning.\u201d The court has also spelled out how to stay focused on that goal: Give the words in a statute \u201ctheir ordinary meaning,\u201d presume that \u201cthe operative language means what it appears to mean,\u201d and stop fishing around for any other meaning when the words of a statute are \u201cunambiguous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The OLC opinion about the Comstock Act ignored all of these rules; in fact, the opinion does not even hint that it\u2019s supposed to follow them at all. Instead, the OLC, while pretending to \u201cinterpret\u201d the Comstock Act, was really inventing a statute that Congress has never enacted \u2014 one that would pose no obstacle to the abortion agenda.<\/p>\n<p>Advancing American Freedom, where I am a senior legal fellow, has made the same argument in a case currently pending in federal court, filing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=https:\/\/advancingamericanfreedom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/2025-1-17-AAF-Louisiana-v.-FDA-Amicus-Brief.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">an amicus brief<\/a> joined by organizations across the country in <em>Louisiana v. Food &#038; Drug Administration<\/em>. After Blanche\u2019s confirmation hearing, AAF led dozens of pro-life organizations in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=https:\/\/advancingamericanfreedom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/AAF-Comstock-Act-Letter-to-AG-Blanche.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a letter to him<\/a> asserting that \u201cthe Comstock Act the [OLC] opinion describes is not the one Congress enacted.\u201d At stake are the lives of countless unborn children, the safety of women, and the Justice Department\u2019s commitment to impartiality and the rule of law.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Thomas L.\u00a0Jipping, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation,\u00a0is the deputy director of Heritage\u2019s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abortion advocates ignore laws and risks of mifepristone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1746,"featured_media":2647746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-19-at-2.11.37-PM-1024x580.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[43033,4901,4762,36292,32276],"class_list":["post-2647745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-healthcarepolicy","tag-justice","tag-legislation","tag-reproductive-rights","tag-womens-rights"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-19-at-2.11.37-PM-1024x580.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1746"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2647745"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2647752,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647745\/revisions\/2647752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2647746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2647745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2647745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2647745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}