In just two years, the Comstock Act became the most existential threat to abortion rights in America since the repeal of the 1873 Act. It’s basically thanks A man’s creative lawyer: Jonathan Mitchell.
Mitchell, an anti-abortion legal theorist based in Austin, Texas, has skyrocketed in popularity since passing the Texas state legislature in 2021. A law he made — called SB 8 — that bans abortion after six weeks and gives Texans the power to sue other citizens who violate it. SB 8 became a model for anti-abortion legislatures everywhere and sent Mitchell’s star on the rise.
When the Supreme Court strikes Ro In 2022 Dobbs In the case, Mitchell embarked on another bold strategy: using Comstock to ban national distribution of the abortion pill mifepristone.
On the surface, it seems straightforward: the law prohibits mailing anything “intended to induce abortion,” including possibly abortion-inducing drugs. The reality is more complicated: in the years since 1873, Successive court rulings significantly weakened Comstock, raising questions about whether it could be used as Mitchell intended.
But while his legal theory may be questionable, Mitchell and his colleagues successfully convinced swaths of the conservative movement that it should become law.
Mitchell’s argument played an important role in a district court ruling banning mifepristone. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Comstock quoted during oral argument In that judgment, which the court recently overturned on narrow grounds Project 2025A 920-page document widely seen as a blueprint for a second Trump term, argues that the Justice Department should prosecute “the suppliers and distributors of such pills” — a possibility left open by Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s majority opinion in the recent case.
To recap: Several years ago, a once-obscure legal theorist dreamed up a dubious argument for restricting access to abortion based on an 1873 law that was widely regarded as dead-letter. Today, his vision is part of a planning document that has major purchase with a Republican candidate leading the presidential race.
It’s a wild story, but not a unique one. Time after time over the past few years, the ideas have moved from the imaginations of conservative activists and intellectuals to the corridors of power.
Invading Mexico to fight drug trafficking was once an obscure idea frowned upon by right-wing think tanks. During the GOP primaries, nearly every Republican presidential candidate endorsed it — Donald Trump among them.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was a non-entity in Republican politics. In the late 2010s a small group of conservative writers and pundits began championing him in Washington. Today, he’s the GOP’s favorite foreign leader — backed by Trump for re-election and serving as the inspiration for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law.
A bronze age pervert used to be an anonymous Nietzschean shitposter on Twitter, sandwiching politics. Worse than fascism Among the photos of oily bodybuilders. But after building a fan club among conservatives online, he became Required reading in Young Trump administration staffers. Obviously in 2018, Bronze Age mentalityAll reached the top 150 books on Amazon
Ideas that once seemed trivial, even completely absurd, have entered the mainstream of American politics with surprising and unexpected speed. My new newsletter, “On the Right,” aims to guide you through them: to help you understand what is happening “on the right” and how it is shaping both the 2024 campaign and a possible second Trump administration.
Some versions will focus on a philosopher who shapes Dunn. Others will track the online debate in the conservative world. Still others may look at a policy paper by a right-wing think tank, or the published work of a Trump campaign staffer.
Regardless of the specific topic, the point of each edition will be the same: to help illuminate the ideas that shape the ideological right and, by extension, the Republican Party. I want to help you learn about the next Comstock Act or Viktor Orban, to guide you through the deep roots of what’s happening with the Trump campaign.
On the Right aims to be less critical of conservatism than perceived, designed to portray conservative beliefs accurately and without caricature. This must sometimes appear as criticism; Some of the ideas circulating on the broader right are arguably anti-democratic and bigoted in areas. But not all of them do. One of the goals of this newsletter is to help my fellow liberals make the difference.
This post is an adaptation of the first edition of On the Right, Vox’s new newsletter — where Jacques Beauchamp describes the ideas and trends driving the conservative movement. Register here!
