Alito and Thomas nudge abortion foes to lean on law from 1873

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday concerning a challenge to the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. As Daily Kos’ Joan McCarter reported on Wednesday, most of the justices seemed skeptical about restricting the drug’s availability based on the arguments made by a right-wing group whose idea of appropriate medical care depends more on religion than science. 

However, both Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas made sure to leave a trail of legal breadcrumbs hinting at a way for conservatives to not just prevent women from having access to mifepristone, but possibly enact a total national ban on abortion.

“This is a prominent provision,” said Alito. “It's not some obscure subsection of a complicated obscure law.”

The law he was referring to is the Comstock Act, an 1873 law against obscenity that has rarely been enforced over the past century and is generally remembered in the same breath as Prohibition, a misguided attempt to legislate morality that’s been dead for close to a century. But for conservatives, this porn law from the Victorian Age really isn’t obscure. It’s the foundation for their next big assault on reproductive rights.