(LifeSiteNews) – When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this June, it did not just allow for the enforcement of old and new state pro-life laws across the country; it also reactivated federal prohibitions on the mailing of abortion-inducing drugs that many abortion activists have highlighted as a way to get around the new legal landscape.
18 United States Code § 1461 makes it a crime punishable by up to five years in prison (ten for repeat offenses) to “knowingly [use] the mails for the mailing, carriage in the mails, or delivery” of certain “indecent” materials “of a character tending to incite arson, murder, or assassination,” including any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion,” as well as information on how to obtain the same.
READ: Debunking 5 myths about the pro-life movement spread by abortion advocates
18 USC § 1462 imposes similar penalties on “bring[ing] into the United States […] for carriage in interstate or foreign commerce” any “drug, medicine, article, or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; or any written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information, directly or indirectly, where, how, or of whom, or by what means any of such mentioned articles, matters, or things may be obtained or made.”
With the fall of Roe suddenly making surgical abortions illegal in many states, abortion activists have suggested mailing abortion pills from pro-abortion states to pro-life ones as a way to circumvent abortion bans. In June, U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services Xavier Becerra declared it a “national imperative” to protect and increase “access” to abortion pills.
But the aforementioned federal statutes complicate those plans by making such mailings illegal regardless of the state in which they originate. While the Biden administration is unlikely to enforce the law, anyone who violates it would still be risking potential prosecution under a future administration.
1.6 million Walmart employees will soon be pressured into supporting and seeking abortions thanks to Walmart’s new initiative pouring financial incentives into abortion-specific travel.
According to CNBC, Walmart employees “and their family members who are insured through Walmart” will have abortion travel costs covered “if they cannot access a legal abortion within 100 miles of their location.”
This is horrifying news, because this means that low-income workers will have virtually no excuse to refuse Walmart’s new abortion-related accommodations.
Walmart expands abortion coverage for its employees in the wake of Roe v Wade decision https://t.co/dtheFTcf07
— CNBC (@CNBC) August 19, 2022
Notice that Walmart is also making abortion virtually inescapable, funding abortion-travel when it's not accessible within a 100-mile radius. As a result, every female employee will be forced to at least consider seeking an abortion.
Walmart's expanding abortion coverage also includes any instance "when there is a health risk to the mother, rape or incest, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or lack of fetal viability.” This seems limited, but it’s actually an expansion of abortion coverage that is the beginning of a very dangerous slippery slope.
This is because the same CNBC report notes that Walmart “previously offered more limited abortion coverage.”
Expansions are continuing in stages, with Walmart targeting their most vulnerable employees who find themselves in life’s darkest, most difficult moments.
Walmart is going to cover abortion care for 1.6 million employees🔥
— Ariana Afshar (she/her) (@progressivebrat) August 19, 2022
There is no private company who currently employs more Americans in the nation than Walmart, and whose abortion coverage will impact more people.
But this means that the American voice is represented in every Walmart store, proving that now is our chance to make that voice heard.
Will you help our fellow Americans raise their voice against pro-abortion Walmart, and push back againast Walmart's war on the pro-life movement?
We cannot miss this moment. With Roe v. Wade officially struck down, it’s now up to us to change the pro-life culture at the state level — but also at the private level.
We cannot have a pro-life culture if private companies are still actively funding abortion!
Stand with America’s employees who are fighting for life at America’s biggest employer: “We the consumers are demanding accountability from you. Stop Walmart's abortion expansion now.”
SIGN TODAY!
This month, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch cited 18 USC § 1461 and 1462 in a case involving abortion pill manufacturer GenBioPro, Inc., which wanted the state’s pro-life trigger law invalidated. GenBioPro argued, unsuccessfully, that the law improperly prevented them from selling an “FDA-approved medication.”
“The trigger law does not conflict with or frustrate any federal law or policy,” Fitch responded. In reality, “federal law adopts the opposite policy from what GBP claims. Federal law criminalizes the use of the mails to do what GBP demands this Court to allow it to do: distribute abortion-inducing drugs.”
Across the country, abortion giant Planned Parenthood has suspended abortions and/or closed locations in reaction to Roe’s fall, and pro-life attorneys general have declared their intentions to enforce their states’ duly-enacted abortion prohibitions.
But leftists prosecutors in dozens of localities have vowed not to enforce such laws, and pro-abortion activists have refocused efforts on supporting interstate travel for abortion and enshrining “rights” to abortion in state constitutions, ensuring that work and debate will continue over the prospect of banning abortion nationally. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has called for electing more Democrats to Congress to support codifying a “right” to abortion-on-demand in federal law.