Friday, May 17, 2024
9:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Kimmel Cultural Campus
300 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102
Keynote Speaker: Preet Bharara, Partner at WilmerHale and former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York

In the wake of the Dobbs decision overturning the federal right to abortion, antiabortion advocates have pushed to revive an 1873 law called the Comstock Act to limit access to medication abortion. The statute banned the mailing of obscene materials and items used to prevent conception or produce abortion. Though long-dormant, Comstock has never been repealed. In 2022, the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo interpreting Comstock to require that the sender of abortion-related items intend for them to be used unlawfully, but antiabortion advocates have argued that Comstock should apply broadly to ban the mailing and distribution of mifepristone, one of the two drugs in the medication abortion regimen. During oral arguments in the pending litigation about FDA approval of mifepristone, two Supreme Court justices signaled their openness to interpreting the Comstock Act in this way.