Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) joined pro-abortion activists and abortion providers for a panel discussion on his proposed legislation to reign in the Comstock Act. His meeting took place one week after President Trump appointed Boulder lawyer Josh Craddock, a staunch proponent of using Comstock to override Coloradans’ reproductive rights, to be Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel. The federal law from 1873, which prohibits the mailing of “obscene” material, has been used by anti-abortion activists to ban abortion at a municipal level in states like Texas and New Mexico. Efforts to use Comstock to prevent an abortion clinic from operating in Pueblo failed twice in recent years.
“We already have heard that medication abortion is in the crosshairs of the current leadership of the FDA,” said Hickenlooper. “We’re not sure how that’s going to manifest itself, but these extreme Republicans and laws from 1873 should not be directing a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, period.”
Following the Dobbs decision, Republican-controlled states have moved to ban or restrict access to abortion, resulting in an increased demand for medication abortion provided via telehealth appointments. Comstock’s restrictions on the use of the postal service could severely impact access to care.
“Since 2022, the first year that we began partnering with telehealth-only clinics, we have seen a 1,173% increase in funding towards people accessing care at telehealth only clinics,” said Melisa Hidalgo-Cuellar, director of the Cobalt Abortion Fund. “That number does not include people accessing telehealth care at clinics that also have brick and mortar clinics. You really see that people are opting for this because it’s a more convenient and affordable option for a lot of abortion seekers. As has been stated here, medication abortion is a very safe and effective way to end a pregnancy and has been FDA approved for over 20 years. We need to defeat this Comstock Act and support the Stop Comstock Act because we must protect people’s freedom to choose the best medical care for themselves in their situation, and this includes protecting access to medication abortion and telehealth medication abortion.”
Hickenlooper argued that the use of the Comstock Act by anti-abortion activists is a misinterpretation of the law. “I don’t think anyone ever dreamed it had anything to do with abortion,” he said. “They’re just taking a law that was intended for one thing and using it for another. So we just strip that language, make that interpretation impossible. Basically, it’s not quite a complete repeal, but it’s pretty close.”
President Donald Trump’s most recent appointee to the Department of Justice disagrees with Hickenlooper’s interpretation. Craddock, who advocates for so-called personhood and is a Federalist Society member, was involved with the recent effort to ban abortion in Pueblo.
He spoke at a December 2022 City Council meeting alongside Mark Lee Dickson, the director of Right to Life of East Texas and founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative, and Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas solicitor general and one of the authors of the “Texas Heartbeat Act,” which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Dickson, Craddock, and Mitchell argued that the proposed ordinance, which cited Comstock, supersedes Colorado state law and the Reproductive Health Equity Act (RHEA). Craddock also testified in support of Rep. Scott Bottoms’ (R-Colorado Springs) 2024 personhood bill.
Last year, Craddock told a French news outlet, “There is nothing nefarious or ‘backdoor’ about enforcing the laws that Congress has enacted and repeatedly reaffirmed.”
“That tactic was used by the same group of people across multiple local communities in several states,” said Cobalt CEO Karen Middleton.
Hickenlooper acknowledged the need for bipartisan support, not just for his bill, but any kind of progressive legislation at the federal level. “We need to get four Republicans,” he said. “To stop one of these things in a reconciliation, we’ve got to be able to get four Republicans. If we put an amendment up, there are going to be four Republicans that will buck the establishment to get something passed. We just haven’t with a lot of these issues, we haven’t been able to get there.”
