Men's Rights and Nothing More, Women's Rights and Nothing Less: Saving America from the Comstock Act and other repressive remnants of the 19th-century past
The American Prospect, September 2024
A century and a half ago, three men sponsored three laws concerning abortion and contraception that continue to have an alarmingly enduring power over women.
Judge William T. Howell's "Howell Code," adopted by the First Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Arizona in 1864, was revived in April 2024 by the current Arizona Supreme Court as enforceable to prohibit abortion.
Anthony Comstock was a special agent in the U.S. Postal Service and secretary of an organization called the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. The federal statute known as the Comstock Act of 1873 is "An Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use," whose current application would criminalize the mailing of "abortifacients."
Phineas Taylor Barnum, the circus entrepreneur, served in the Connecticut state legislature that enacted the Barnum Act of 1879, stipulating fines and jail time for "any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception," as well as that "any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender."
Read the full article at The American Prospect