Jurisprudence
July 22, 20269:00 AM
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Up until now, the second Trump Department of Justice has been a massive disappointment for the anti-abortion movement. That may all be about to change. At his recent confirmation hearings, Todd Blanche, Trump’s choice to replace Pam Bondi as attorney general, had several revealing exchanges with Republican senators on abortion. Blanche, the acting attorney general, pledged to use DOJ resources to stop telehealth abortion, and even appeared to agree with Sen. Ted Cruz that the Comstock Act, a 19th-century obscenity law, operates as a de facto national ban on abortion.
Blanche has yet to make it out of committee, much less get confirmed, but Republicans already seem to expect a change in direction at the DOJ: This week, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley sent the Department of Justice a criminal referral involving Plan C, an organization that provides information about how people in all 50 states can obtain abortion medication.
