Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a group of faith leaders on a private call last week that the Justice Department is working to make the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision “permanent in every single state,” including ones that currently protect abortion access.
Blanche made the remarks during a call hosted by the White House Faith Office and attended by the group Intercessors for America. A recording of the call was posted on YouTube and first reported by Politico on Monday.
Blanche told the group that undoing Biden-era protections for abortion access has been “taking longer than we want.” He said the Justice Department is “working hand-in-hand” with federal health agencies, the White House and President Trump’s team “to get permanent solutions so the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.”
The 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion policy to individual states. Mail-order pharmacies combined with “shield laws” in Democrat-led states have since allowed women in states with abortion bans to obtain medication abortion by mail.
Blanche indicated the Justice Department is preparing to act on that specifically. “If states have said, ‘We are going to protect the unborn and we’re going to protect every life from the moment of conception,’ we’re putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations can’t attack that,” Blanche said, according to the recording. “They can’t do things like they’re doing with mailing in mail-order drugs.”
Blanche did not say whether the department plans to invoke the Comstock Act, an 1873 law barring the mailing of items related to abortion that some conservatives have pushed to enforce against mifepristone shipments.
The comments go further than what Blanche told senators during his July 15 confirmation hearing, where he said he would prioritize review of the Biden administration’s rules allowing mifepristone to be mailed but declined to give specifics.
“We don’t have complete victory yet,” Blanche told the faith leaders, “but we will have victory, and victory will be soon, and it will be permanent.”
The call came as Blanche’s nomination for attorney general worked through the Senate. The Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 along party lines Tuesday to advance his nomination to the full Senate, clearing a holdup from two Republican senators who had demanded he first rescind a $1.8 billion Justice Department fund tied to a settlement with President Trump. Blanche signed an order rescinding that fund on Sunday.
Senate Republicans hold a 53-seat majority. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have been seen as potential Republican no votes on Blanche’s confirmation.
