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The Latest Breaking News from Anthony Comstock

Seizure of Sally Mann’s photographs in Texas revives old debates about obscenity and freedom of expression

Four photographs by celebrated artist Sally Mann were recently removed from the walls of an exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth at the behest of local Republican officials, who claimed they constituted child pornography. The Fort Worth Police Department is now investigating the allegation.

The Conversation

The Stop Comstock Act Doesn't Go Far Enough

Upcoming legislation would repeal parts of the 1873 law that could be used to target abortion, but the Comstock Act's reach is much more broad than that.

Reason

President Biden Should Pardon D.M. Bennett

Issuing a posthumous pardon for Bennett would reaffirm our nation’s commitment to free expression and intellectual freedom.

Reason

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Why anti-abortion advocates are reviving a 19th century sexual purity law

The Comstock Act is the latest front in the fight over reproductive rights. Here's what you need to know about the 1873 law and the consequences if it's enforced the way some conservatives would like.

WEKU

The Republican party has become a full-fledged anti-sex movement

The conservative obsession with purity and control is being achieved by increasingly punitive means

The Guardian - US

Clashing convictions mark protests as US supreme court weighs abortion pill

Hearing on mifepristone most consequential abortion-related case since overturning of Roe v Wade nearly two years ago

The Guardian - US

Michael Hiltzik: Conservative attacks on abortion depend on a law that courts have snubbed for 100 years

Nothing reflects that show-stopping lyric "everything old is new again" like the tactics of the antiabortion movement — specifically, its reliance on a long-discredited 1873 law to eviscerate women's healthcare rights in the modern age.

Los Angeles Times

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An obscure 1800s law is shaping up to be the center of the next abortion battle – legal scholars explain what's behind the Victorian-era Comstock Act

Anti-abortion groups are looking for new ways to wage their battle against abortion rights, eyeing the potential implications of a 150-year-old law, the Comstock Act, that could effectively lead to a nationwide abortion ban.

The Conversation

An anti-obscenity law from 1873 was discarded for decades. Now the anti-abortion movement wants it back

Anthony Comstock’s crusade against women gained him the moniker of ‘moral eunuch’. Today’s anti-choice zealots are following in his footsteps

The Guardian - US

Why anti-abortion groups are citing the ideas of a 19th-century 'vice reformer'

Anthony Comstock pushed Congress to crack down on what he saw as harmful vices, such as pornography and contraception. An 1873 law named for him has appeared in recent court battles over abortion.

WEKU

A new abortion pill ruling is super bad

The 5th Circuit judges nodded approval of a 19th century federal law that was used to ban books and birth control

Salon

What to know about the Comstock Act as abortion pill fight escalates

Anti-abortion groups have revived the centuries-old law.

Axios

Editorial: An outdated vice law should not be a weapon against reproductive rights

The Comstock Act of 1873 is a relic, the work of an anti-vice crusader, Anthony Comstock, who lobbied Congress to prohibit, among other things, the mailing of any “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” written material. The act, formally known as “An Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of,…

Los Angeles Times

How an old law found new life in lawsuit seeking to revoke approval of abortion pill

Anti-abortion advocates are trying to revive the long-dormant 1873 Comstock Act, which banned mailing of anything related to abortion or contraception, in a lawsuit about mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug.

The Texas Tribune

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Los Angeles Times

Michael Hiltzik: A spineless Walgreens bows down to antiabortion crusaders

There has long been reason to question whether, despite its pledges to do the right thing, corporate America will stand up for environmental, social and democratic principles.

Salon

Author Jennifer Wright on how abortionist Madame Restell got rich in the 1800s — before she was driven to suicide

The Conversation

Proposed federal abortion ban evokes 19th-century Comstock Act – a law so unpopular it triggered the centurylong backlash that led to Roe

Sen. Lindsey Graham has proposed a national U.S. abortion ban barring the procedure after 15 weeks. This push to restrict abortion access across the country follows a rash of new state laws passed by Republicans after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

Reason

Lady Chatterley's Lover Case Dealt a Blow to U.S. Book Censors

Up through the 1950s, federal agents kept confiscating books they deemed obscene. But in 1959, a judge ruled that D.H. Lawrence's book deserved First Amendment protection.

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Reason

When 'Pro-Life' Becomes 'Pro-Censorship'

Antiabortion activists are the new Anthony Comstocks.

Los Angeles Times

Commentary: The pendulum is swinging back, reversing hard-won sexual freedoms and civil rights

The leaked Supreme Court opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., which would overturn Roe v. Wade, marks a devastating setback for reproductive justice in the United States. It also highlights how bound up the right to abortion is with other fundamental sexual freedoms and civil rights. Whatever happens in…

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