The 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, supposedly gave states the authority to decide for themselves whether to permit abortion. What should have been apparent then, and is obvious now, is that anti-abortion activists and their allies on the high court were never going to be satisfied with that. Since October, the state of Louisiana has been seeking to block the distribution of mifepristone, a drug used to induce abortion, through the mail'not just in Louisiana, but anywhere in the United States. The state's lawsuit against the FDA asserts that the Comstock Act'an anti-obscenity law championed by the 19th-century book burner Anthony Comstock'bans the mailing of abortion medication, and that the federal government wrongly repealed the in-person requirement for prescribing it. 'Louisiana is complaining about reported harms in Louisiana, but they would be imposing a nationwide requirement that patients pick up the pill in person from their health-care provider, even in...
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