Press Releases
Webster and Colleagues Expose DOJ Memo for Violating Law and Jeopardizing Health and Safety of Women
January 26, 2023
Washington, D.C. — In December, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) released a memorandum claiming that abortion drugs can be mailed into states that prohibit abortions – directly violating state law. Florida Congressman Daniel Webster, R-Clermont, joined Senator James Lankford (R-OK) and a bicameral group of members in sending a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland condemning the Biden Administration’s willingness to jeopardize the health and safety of women to further the left’s abortion-on-demand agenda.
“It is disappointing, yet not surprising, that the Biden Administration’s DOJ has not only abdicated its Constitutional responsibility to enforce the law, but also has once again twisted the plain meaning of the law in an effort to promote the taking of unborn life. The OLC memo should be immediately rescinded or, at minimum, redrafted to articulate an accurate application of the law,” the members wrote.
“While the use of chemical abortion drugs may be legal in some States, and Federal law does not currently explicitly prohibit the use of such drugs, Federal law does prohibit the mailing or shipping of such items. Despite attempts to downplay this action, the ‘mere mailing’ of these items is expressly what the law has prohibited for nearly 150 years…The reckless distribution of abortion drugs by mail or other carriers to pregnant mothers who have not been examined in-person by a physician is not only dangerous and unsafe, it is criminal,” the members continued.
The members letter is backed by the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee, Students for Life, Family Policy Alliance, Americans United for life, CatholicVote, Scholars with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Heritage Action, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Family research Council, March for Life, and SBA Prolife America.
Read the full letter here.
“It is disappointing, yet not surprising, that the Biden Administration’s DOJ has not only abdicated its Constitutional responsibility to enforce the law, but also has once again twisted the plain meaning of the law in an effort to promote the taking of unborn life. The OLC memo should be immediately rescinded or, at minimum, redrafted to articulate an accurate application of the law,” the members wrote.
“While the use of chemical abortion drugs may be legal in some States, and Federal law does not currently explicitly prohibit the use of such drugs, Federal law does prohibit the mailing or shipping of such items. Despite attempts to downplay this action, the ‘mere mailing’ of these items is expressly what the law has prohibited for nearly 150 years…The reckless distribution of abortion drugs by mail or other carriers to pregnant mothers who have not been examined in-person by a physician is not only dangerous and unsafe, it is criminal,” the members continued.
The members letter is backed by the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee, Students for Life, Family Policy Alliance, Americans United for life, CatholicVote, Scholars with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Heritage Action, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Family research Council, March for Life, and SBA Prolife America.
Read the full letter here.
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