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comstock act
Alarm as 'Legal Terrorist' Helps Texan Sue Dr. Over Girlfriend's Abortion Pills
The high-profile lawyer behind the case "wants to shut down doctors in shield law states," said one expert, and "he wants a federal court to weigh in on the Comstock Act."
Jul 24, 2025
As polling reaffirms U.S. public support for abortion rights, a new case in Texas is generating alarm and outrage, as it involves a federal "zombie law" that the forced birth movement aims to use to block people across the country from accessing abortion pills.
Jonathan Mitchell is serving as lead counsel in the proposed class action lawsuit, filed Sunday in the Southern District of Texas. Described as an "anti-abortion legal terrorist" by Susan Rinkunas in Jezebel, Mitchell is Texas' former solicitor general and the chief architect of a state law that entices anti-choice vigilantes with $10,000 bounties to enforce a six-week abortion ban.
"He's represented at least three other men who've sued over women's abortions—including Marcus Silva, who sued his ex-wife's friends for helping her get abortion pills. That case was eventually dropped, but not before it came out that Silva tried to use the lawsuit to blackmail his ex into having sex with him," Jessica Valenti noted in her Abortion, Everyday newsletter. "Since then, Mitchell and other anti-abortion activists have been cozying up to men's rights groups, 'abortion recovery' ministries, and crisis pregnancy centers—on the lookout for more angry men eager to sue their partners or exes for ending a pregnancy."
In the new wrongful death case in Texas, Mitchell represents Jerry Rodriguez, who is suing Rémy Coeytaux, a California doctor accused of mailing to Galveston County medication that his girlfriend used to end her pregnancy last September. The complaint claims the girlfriend's estranged husband and mother "pressured her to kill the baby with the drugs obtained from Coeytaux."
The complaint also claims the girlfriend ended a second pregnancy with "pills that were illegally obtained" in January—and she is now two months into a third pregnancy, and Rodriguez believes she may seek another medication abortion. He asked for $75,000 in damages and "an injunction to stop Coeytaux from distributing abortion-inducing drugs in violation of state or federal law."
The new "wrongful death" abortion pill lawsuit out of Texas is a BFD for several reasons, but one twist is that the doctor being targeted is the brother of lifelong reproductive health advocate Francine Coeytaux of @plancpills.bsky.social Collab by Nina Martin & me on what the case is all about:
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— Madison Pauly (@msjpauly.bsky.social) July 23, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Among the legislation cited in the filing is the Comstock Act, or 18 U.S. Code § 1461, a dormant 1873 law that criminalized the shipping of "obscene" materials, including abortifacients. While some anti-choice advocates aim to outlaw abortion nationwide with legislation in Congress, Mitchell has said that "we don't need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books."
Since the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority reversed Roe v. Wade with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022, Republican lawmakers have ramped up their efforts to restrict abortion rights within their states—with deadly consequences. Residents of those parts of the country have increasingly turned to telehealth. States with pro-choice policymakers have enacted "shield laws" to protect abortion providers and patients who are traveling or receiving care online.
"These anti-abortion folks are really upset that all these pills are being sent to their states, and they're doing whatever they can to try to stop it," Jill Wieber Lens, a University of Iowa College of Law professor and reproductive rights expert, told Jezebel.
Lens also framed the Texas case as a fear tactic. "I think so much of this is about the chilling effect, as opposed to actually winning this lawsuit," she said. "This might scare other doctors in shield states from wanting to continue what they're doing."
According to Mother Jones, "The case is the first known test of whether abortion opponents can use federal court lawsuits to circumvent state shield laws aimed at protecting providers—a major escalation of attacks on abortion-friendly states."
Mary Ziegler, an abortion historian and law professor at the University of California, Davis, told the outlet that "the whole game for Jonathan Mitchell is to get into federal court... both because he wants to shut down doctors in shield law states, like everyone in the anti-abortion movement, and because he wants a federal court to weigh in on the Comstock Act."
Ziegler added on social media that the suit is also intended to "force a response" from the U.S. Supreme Court and President Donald Trump, who has so far resisted pressure from forced birth activists to use the Comstock Act to ban abortion nationwide. Further, she said, "it reinforces arguments for fetal personhood (note that is a class action on behalf of all 'fathers of unborn children')."
Three years after the fall of Roe v. Wade, most Americans still support legal abortion.-64% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.-80%+ support it in cases of rape, incest, or health risks.-Even after Dobbs, public opinion hasn’t budged; the people are not with the ban.
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— Anna DNP, FNP, BC@ AccessToCareAdvocate (@anna1900.bsky.social) July 24, 2025 at 7:33 AM
The case comes as Thursday polling from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 64% of U.S. adults across the political spectrum say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
While 52% of all respondents agreed abortion should be allowed if the patient does not want to be pregnant "for any reason," large majorities believe it should be allowed if the pregnant person's health is seriously endangered (89%), the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest (86%), and an abnormality would prevent the fetus from surviving outside of the womb (85%).
Additionally, according to the poll, a majority of Americans support protecting abortion access for people who endure miscarriages or other pregnancy-related emergencies (69%), protecting a patient's right to obtain care in another state (56%), and protecting doctors from fines or prison time (55%).
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Bracing for New Trump Attacks, Georgia Abortion Defenders Vow to Fight On
"We cannot quit. We cannot be silent. If we quit, we lose more women," said one mother whose daughter died after being denied care under Georgia's six-week ban.
Jan 21, 2025
Congresswoman Nikema Williams joined patients, healthcare providers, and activists—including the mother of a woman who died after being refused abortion care in Georgia—at a Tuesday press conference held a day before what would have been the 52nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and amid fears of a national abortion ban during U.S. President Donald Trump's second term.
"I refuse to stand by while extremist politicians attack our freedoms, our health, and our future," Williams (D-Ga.) told attendees of the virtual press conference, which was hosted by the abortion rights group Free & Just. "Reproductive freedom is about healthcare, it's about dignity, it's about autonomy. It's about ensuring that everyone, every person, has the ability to make the best decisions for themselves and their families without government interference."
Speakers at Tuesday's event included Shanette Williams, whose 28-year-old daughter Amber Nicole Thurman died in 2022 after being forced to travel out of state to seek care due to a recently passed Georgia law banning almost all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a period during which many people don't even know they're pregnant.
"I want to send a clear message to men to get off the sidelines and enter the fight for reproductive justice."
Thurman, who was the single mother of a young son, is one of at least several U.S. women—most of them Black or brown—whose deaths have been attributed to draconian anti-abortion laws.
"She left a son, who every day is confused by why his mother is not here," Williams said of her daughter. "I'm here to be that voice, to fight, to push, to do whatever I need to do to help save another life. Because I never want a mother to feel what I feel today."
"We cannot quit. We cannot be silent. If we quit, we lose more women," Williams added. "In November, following reporting from ProPublica, officials in Georgia dismissed all members of the state's Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which investigates the deaths of pregnant women across the state."
Last September, Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney struck down the state's six-week abortion ban as a violation of "a woman's right to control what happens to and within her body," a decision that made the procedure legal up to approximately 22 weeks of pregnancy. Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court.
Avery Davis Bell, a Savannah mother who had to travel out of Georgia for care after her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition that threatened her own life as well, said during Tuesday's press conference: "I could have been Amber Nicole Thurman. It is important for me to continue sharing my story and advocating for us to be able to build the families we want, protect our lives, and be here for our living children."
Atlanta-area ultrasound technician and abortion care provider Suki O. said during the event that Georgia's ban "has been in place for three years now and it doesn't get any easier."
"To turn women away is the hardest thing for me to do," she added. "How many Black women will die, have died, and will continue to die due to these abortion bans?"
Davan'te Jennings, president of Young Democrats of Georgia and youth organizing director at Men4Choice, told the press conference that abortion "is not just a women's issue, this is a man's issue as well."
"I want to send a clear message to men to get off the sidelines and enter the fight for reproductive justice," Jennings added. "What would it look like for you to have to watch your mother go through this? To watch your sister go through this?"
While Trump has said he would veto any national abortion ban passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, reproductive rights advocates have expressed doubt that the president—a well-documented liar—would actually do so, and warned that his administration could use a 151-year-old law known as the Comstock Act to outlaw the procedure without needing congressional approval.
Critics also note that Trump has repeatedly bragged about appointing three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the 2022 decision that canceled nearly a half-century of federal abortion rights.
The Trump administration is also widely expected to revive the so-called Global Gag Rule, which bans foreign nongovernmental organizations from performing or promoting abortion care using funds from any source, if they receive funds from the U.S. government for family planning activities.
Conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation-led coalition behind Project 2025—a blueprint for a far-right overhaul of the federal government—have proposed policies including a national abortion ban, restricting access to birth control, defunding Planned Parenthood, monitoring and tracking pregnancy and abortion data, and eviscerating federal protections for lifesaving emergency abortion care.
While campaigning for president, Trump said he would allow states to monitor women's pregnancies and prosecute anyone who violates an abortion ban. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 12 states currently have near-total abortion bans, and 29 states have enacted prohibitions based on gestational duration.
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Vance Claims Trump Would Veto Federal Abortion Ban. Warren Responds: 'Women Are Not Stupid'
"We are not going to trust the futures of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about blocking access to abortion for women all across this country," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Aug 25, 2024
Sen. Elizabeth Warren responded forcefully to Sen. JD Vance on Sunday after the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that Donald Trump—who has repeatedly celebrated and taken credit for the Supreme Court decision that revoked abortion rights at the federal level—would veto legislation imposing a nationwide abortion ban if it reached his desk.
"American women are not stupid and we are not going to trust the futures of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about blocking access to abortion for women all across this country," Warren (D-Mass.) told NBC News' Kristen Welker.
The Democratic senator went on to warn that if Trump and Vance win in November, their administration could wield a 151-year-old zombie statute known as the Comstock Act to ban abortion nationwide, without even needing congressional approval.
Last year, Vance joined dozens of Republican lawmakers in calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to enforce the long-dormant Comstock Act and "shut down all mail-order abortion operations."
"Right now, where we are is Donald Trump and JD Vance take the White House, they have current law, the Comstock Act which, with the right person that they put into the Department of Justice and one of their extremist judges out in the world, they can actually ban all access to abortion all across this country," Warren said Sunday. "So for any woman who's in the middle of a miscarriage who goes into an emergency room and discovers there's no medication and no treatment for her because abortion has been banned nationwide, they can thank Donald Trump and JD Vance."
Warren's comments came after Vance told Welker in an interview that aired Sunday that he believes Trump would veto a federal abortion ban if such a measure passed Congress.
"He said that explicitly that he would," Vance said.
But Welker pushed back, replying: "I don't think he's ever said explicitly that he would. He's said that to you?"
Vance did not respond directly to Welker's follow-up.
Trump said in April that, if reelected, he would do nothing to stop states from imposing draconian bans on abortion, saying they should be allowed to do "whatever they decide."
While the former president stopped short of supporting a federal abortion ban, Trump boasted that he was "proudly the person responsible" for ending Roe v. Wade, which was overturned by a right-wing Supreme Court supermajority that includes three Trump-appointed justices.
When he was president, Trump urged the U.S. Senate to pass legislation banning abortion at the federal level after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Warren noted Sunday that with Roe overturned, 30% of women in the U.S. "live in states that effectively ban abortion."
"Donald Trump and JD Vance in the White House, it won't be 30%, it will be 100%," Warren said. "The only way that we're going to protect access to abortion is to have a Democratic Congress, send a bill to Kamala Harris, she will sign it into law, and then we will restore a right to half the population in this country. And no longer will a woman have to go into an emergency room and be told she's not near enough death to get the medical treatment that she needs."
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