Enforce Comstock: End ‘Mail-Order’ Abortions | The American Spectator

President Trump knows the urgency of putting America first (securing the border, bolstering the economy), but he does not seem to understand that moral good is higher than material good. The most defenseless and innocent Americans are dying by mail-order abortions, and the President could stop it if he chose.

An 1873 federal law is still on the books, prohibiting the mailing of:

Every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance; and

Every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; and

Every 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[.]

This law, known as the Comstock Act, enables the President to save babies from the death pill. Before his election liberals were terrified that Trump would enforce the Comstock Act, but he has given them nothing to fear on this front.

The President’s squeamishness about abortion and his weakness in “leaving it to the states” is disappointing. Even liberal Bill Maher criticized this inconsistency: “You mean, so killing babies is OK in some states? I can respect the absolutist position. I really can … They think it’s murder and it kind of is.”

Chemical abortion is the most common method of killing preborn babies today since the Biden administration instructed the Department of Justice not to enforce Comstock, enabling illegal mail-order abortions. This allowed liberal activists to ship abortion pills to any state, even those where abortion is illegal. The President has the authority to protect children and move the Pro-Life mission forward with existing law.

Instead of buckling down on abortion, Trump has developed a passion for IVF. As someone who struggles with infertility, I cannot second the President’s enthusiasm for this method of reproduction. Who would want to be conceived in adultery, incest, or rape? And yet who would deny that such people are human? Likewise, who would want to be conceived in a petri dish? I feel for the poor children because it is every child’s dream to be born to loving parents, conceived in wedded love.

The question of life is a question of truth and right, and justice for the unborn does not conflict with the freedom of women since freedom is not the mere absence of restraint but the ability to do good. Roger Scruton averred, “Freedom divorced from authority is of no use to anyone — not even to the one who possesses it.” Women do not have the authority to kill their children, and it is nonsense to call it freedom. Saint Augustine would argue that the “freedom” to do evil is not freedom at all; allowing people to vitiate themselves through immoral conduct is not empowerment. We need to return to a classical notion of freedom as the ability to do good and abandon the notion of freedom as the mere absence of restraint.

The Comstock Act is a memorial of an age that acknowledged the connection between the morality of the populace and the stability of the state. It’s often ridiculed as the work of an “anti-vice crusader,” but it reminds me of Alexis de Tocqueville, who saw the fundamental dependence of America on the virtue of the people. In Democracy in America, he wrote that “liberty cannot be established without morality.”

In the Gorgias, Polus asks Socrates, “Would you rather suffer than do injustice?”  Socrates responds, “I should not like either, but if I must choose between them, I would rather suffer than do.” Moral evil harms the soul and is therefore a greater catastrophe than material evil, which only harms the body. Therefore, the women who procure abortions are more to be pitied even than the children they murder. Abortion kills the baby’s body, but it kills the woman’s soul.  

Although Trump has bragged about being the most pro-life president, he has failed to follow through with the thoroughness we could wish. The Trump administration has laid a great foundation by recognizing that there are only two sexes. This acknowledgement is the starting point of the natural law arguments against abortion.

The Comstock Act has the potential to ban abortion nationwide. The President needs to put the most defenseless Americans at the top of his priority list. We will never have true human flourishing without just laws and their judicious enforcement. I hope Trump will set America on the right course, so that all, especially the weakest and most vulnerable, can attain life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

READ MORE:

The Messed-Up World of People Who Believe Abortion Is Love

A Hopeful Pope Leo Change for Life

Mary Proffit Kimmel attended Hillsdale College and received a Masters from the University of Dallas. She is a wife and mother in Fort Scott, KS.