Earlier this week the Justice Department announced that the U.S. Postal Service can continue to deliver prescription abortion medication according to NBC News. The news is shocking after the June 2022 the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
In an opinion sought by the United States Postal Service, the department’s Office of Legal Counsel said the mailing of misoprostol and mifepristone—which are often used to terminate pregnancies—didn’t violate the Comstock Act (a law founded in 1873).
“We conclude that [the statute]does not prohibit the mailing, or the delivery or receipt by mail, of mifepristone or misoprostol where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully. There are manifold ways in which recipients in every state may use these drugs, including to produce an abortion, without violating state law. Therefore, the mere mailing of such drugs to a particular jurisdiction is an insufficient basis for concluding that the sender intends them to be used unlawfully.”
In a statement, the United States Postal Service released said the opinion “confirms that the Comstock Act does not require the Postal Service to change our current practice, which has been to consider packages containing mifepristone and misoprostol to be mailable under federal law in the same manner as other prescription drugs.”
Mifepristone must be taken in combination with misoprostol in order to terminate a pregnancy up to 10 weeks into it. The medicine is also FDA approved. USPS has insisted it took no stances when it comes to abortion policy at either the federal or state level.
USPS also said that the Justice Department aligned with its “determination that under the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity, any state laws that may apply to the shipment of those prescription drugs cannot be applied to Postal Service employees who are complying with their duties under federal law.”
