As support for abortion rights has grown in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, President-elect Donald J. Trump has distanced himself from a proposed federal ban on abortion, saying that he supports leaving regulation of the issue to the states.
But Republicans and opponents of abortion rights will put pressure on him to enact one. While Republicans do not have the supermajority they need in the Senate to pass the 15-week ban they have proposed, groups that oppose abortion rights have written road maps that would allow Mr. Trump to effectively ban abortion without help from Congress.
These include enforcing the long-dormant Comstock Act, which makes it a federal crime to send or receive materials “designed, adapted, or intended” for “obscene” or “abortion-causing” purposes. Advisers to Mr. Trump have recommended using Comstock to block the sale of abortion pills, and say that it could also be used to criminalize the delivery or receipt of medical instruments used in abortion procedures.
Americans United for Life, a prominent anti-abortion group, also issued a report in 2021 that outlines how the president could issue an executive order extending 14th Amendment protections to “pre-born persons.” This would accomplish the long-held goal of the anti-abortion movement to recognize fetal personhood in the Constitution, and criminalize abortion at any stage as murder.
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