Ahead of Confirmation Vote, Groups Blast Blanche Vow Subject 'Every Single State' to Anti-Abortion Laws

Reproductive rights groups are sounding the alarm about a recent pledge made by acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche to make every state adhere to anti-abortion laws passed in red states.

In a phone call last week hosted by the White House Faith Office, Blanche told a religious group that he would work would work to ensure the US Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion “becomes permanent in every single state.”

During the call, Blanche hinted that the Trump administration would place restrictions on the ability to mail drugs such as mifepristone to states that have outlawed abortion.

"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. "They can’t do things like they’re doing with mailing in mail-order drugs."

In an analysis published Wednesday, journalist Jessica Valenti argued that Blanche's pledge would not result in a nationwide ban on abortions, but rather "stopping the shipping of abortion medication under the auspices of adhering to Dobbs."

"If we lost telemedicine abortion, there would be devastating national consequences," Valenti emphasized. "You could even argue—and I have!—that banning the shipping of abortion pills amounts to a backdoor national ban."

In a Tuesday social media post, Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) highlighted Blanche's call and warned that confirming him as AG permanently would be a green light to assault women's rights.

"Todd Blanche made clear in these secret calls with anti-choice activists that he wants to resurrect the Comstock Act—an antiquated anti-vice law from before women had the right to vote—to ban sending medication abortion in the mail," wrote Smith. "Republicans will likely do what they always do and confirm Blanche as attorney general despite all of this, and once again, women across America will pay the price."

Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, accused Blanche of "making dangerous promises behind closed doors to weaponize the Justice Department to enact a national abortion ban."

"We must believe Blanche when he says he will come for our rights," Timmaraju added. "Republicans are using every lever of government to attack reproductive freedom, and voters will make their voices heard this November to take our Congress back from these extremists."

Nourbese Flint, president of All* Above All, called Blanche's promise "an open declaration of his intention to use the Justice Department to stop the delivery of abortion medication."

"The lie they told us in the aftermath of Dobbs was that it was about sending abortion law back to the states," Flint said, "but we have known all along that anti-abortion zealots like Todd Blanche would not stop until they could restrict our bodily autonomy to the furthest degree."