Source Body Text

The abortion pill is a miracle. Mifepristone, then called RU-486, was synthesized by a French lab in the 1980s; in combination with misoprostol, commonly used as ulcer medication, it cuts off the body’s supply of progesterone, halts the development of a pregnancy, and incites contractions, which empty the uterus. The drug allows pregnancies to be terminated with a shocking degree of reliability and ease. Gone are the concoctions of ergot and Spanish Fly dispensed by 19th century midwives, which only sometimes worked to induce a miscarriage; gone are the backroom procedures of the pre-Roe US, when drunk, lascivious, incompetent or cruel providers wielded bent coat hangers in dirty rooms. The abortion pill is safe, effective and cheaper than ever. And since Dobbs, it’s everywhere: even if you live in a state with an abortion ban, you can get the pills shipped to your house in the mail. Since Roe was overturned, there has not been a return to the terror of mass death that marked the pre-Roe era of septic abortion wards, where women routinely found themselves maimed, sickened or killed. There’s exactly one reason why: because illegal abortions were largely unsafe without the pill, and they are extremely safe with it. So of course, the Trump administration and their allies on the American right are trying to get rid of it. And this month, they gained a powerful new ally when Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and an anti-abortion zealot, was confirmed as attorney general. The vote, in which Blanche was confirmed by a margin of one along party lines, was conducted in the wee hours of the morning on 8 August. Maybe that’s because the Republicans who confirmed him didn’t want anyone to see what they were doing. Blanche has, after all, been shockingly subservient to Donald Trump, and seems poised to complete the president’s long-brewing transformation of the country’s chief law enforcement agency into a vehicle for score settling, personal vendettas, distributing favors to the administration’s friends and suppressing dissent from its political enemies. But perhaps most incendiary is what Blanche has said, publicly and privately, about how he intends to use the justice department and its vast array of oversight powers, legal prerogatives, and investigatory purview to curtail abortion access nationwide – and to shut down the life-saving distribution of mifepristone, in particular. In a call facilitated by the White House faith office just days before he was confirmed, Blanche reportedly told Christian conservative leaders that as attorney general, he would move more aggressively than his predecessor Pam Bondi to outlaw the mailing of mifepristone across state lines, and target the Democratic-controlled states that have protected abortion most effectively. Blanche, who was then the acting AG, told the religious group Intercessors for America that the justice department was working “so that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.” “We don’t have complete victory yet,” Blanche said, “but we will have victory, and victory will be soon, and, and, and it will be permanent.” Exactly how Blanche intends to secure his victory over women’s freedom is unclear. But as AG, he has several paths at his disposal. His comments on the call prompted widespread speculation that Blanche could call for enforcement of the Comstock Act, a long-dormant law from 1873 that has been unenforced for years and has been partially repealed in the past. Anti-choice advocates say it could be used to legally ban the mailing of abortion pills, thus cutting off access for many women who live in states with bans. In 2022, the Biden justice department declared that medical providers could not be prosecuted under the Comstock Act for mailing abortion pills; as the attorney general, Blanche would have the power to reverse that decision. The Comstock Act’s application would be particularly significant, as it could be used to halt virtually all commercial traffic in abortion pills – not only mifepristone, but also misoprostol, the second drug, which has sometimes been used to induce abortion on its own. Such a move would reverse the miracle of the pills, pushing many desperate women towards methods that are less effective and can carry grave dangers. Another path that Blanche could take to restrict abortion access would be to sue the states that seek to protect it. On the call, Blanche explained his reasoning: “If states have said, ‘We are going to protect the unborn and we’re going to protect every life from the moment of conception,’ we’re putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations can’t attack that. They can’t do things like they’re doing with mailing in mail-order drugs.” Here, Blanche appeared to be referencing shield laws, legislation passed in a number of Democratic-controlled states that prohibits state authorities from participating in other states’ abortion-related investigations and prosecutions. The laws mean that doctors operating out of states like New York or Washington can prescribe and ship abortion drugs to people living in places such as Texas or Arkansas, safe in the knowledge that their own state police will not come knocking at their door to serve another state’s warrant or extradition order. Blanche’s comments suggest that his Department of Justice might sue to have the shield laws declared illegal, thus significantly curtailing liberal states’ rights to choose their own law enforcement priorities and granting conservative states the power to enforce their own laws even beyond their borders. Blanche also appeared to indicate that he would seek to restrict abortion access using other agencies’ powers. On his call with leaders of the Christian right, he said his department was “working hand in hand” with health agencies to make Dobbs permanent. The FDA, which expanded access to mifepristone in 2021 under the Biden administration and made the change permanent in 2023, has been under intense pressure from anti-choice allies in the Maga coalition to revise that guidance, making the drug ineligible for telehealth prescriptions and requiring patients to retrieve it from providers in person, a regulatory move that would also serve to cut off access in Republican controlled states. But the anti-abortion movement is pushing the FDA even further: it has succeeded in getting the agency to initiate a “review” of mifepristone’s safety (though the safety of the drug has been proven by nearly four decades of use worldwide and hundreds of studies), which is widely seen as a pathway for the FDA to create a pretext to remove mifepristone from the market. That’s not fast enough for some on the misogynist right: Louisiana has sued the FDA, asking it to forbid mifepristone from being prescribed via telehealth, in a case that is set to be heard by the ultraconservative fifth circuit next month. So far, the justice department has supported the drug’s online availability in court. Under Blanche, it could reverse that stance. Trump has been gunshy about pursuing the agenda of his antiabortion allies since returning to office. He appears to have been spooked by the political reaction to Dobbs, which was credited for the Democrats’ better-than-expected showing in the 2022 midterms, as well as with a slew of pro-choice victories in special elections in the years that immediately followed the decision. The anti-choice movement has even been angry with Trump for the slow pace of his anti-abortion agenda since his return to power in 2025. Which is not to say that the Trump administration has given the movement nothing: enforcement of the Face Act, a federal law meant to stop anti-choice protestors from physically blocking clinic entrances, has been all but abandoned since Trump returned to the White House; some who were prosecuted under the law have even been pardoned and remunerated by Trump, at taxpayer expense. But until now, Trump has faced a looming threat that seems to have slowed the pace of his anti-abortion policymaking: the 2026 midterms. Soon, that obstacle will be removed. The appointment of Todd Blanche is a dark signal for women’s rights: more abortion restrictions can be expected in 2027. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist