In a video that premiered in late October, Minnesota senator Tina Smith sat next to Anthony Comstock, the United States postal inspector and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice who died in 1915—or rather, someone acting as Mr. Comstock, in a costume replete with grey sideburns, bushy eyebrows, and a black top hat.
Produced by the Abortion Access Front, a reproductive rights nonprofit, the video is entitled the “Debate of the Century” and features Smith critiquing the Comstock Act—a set of laws architected by Comstock in the 1800s, prohibiting the mailing of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” materials, like pornography, or any article or thing “intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion.” This so-called “zombie law,” as Smith explained to her stage partner, is still on the books and could be used by president-elect Donald Trump’s next administration to restrict access to abortion nationwide—without a single bill falling on congressional desks.
“You talking women quench your insatiable thirst for horndoggery by worshiping at the altar of abortion and contraception; you use the US mail as your personal delivery service of lewd goods and all things abortion,” the fake-Comstock said in the video, to the side-eye glance of his opponent. “All things which one Senator Tina Smith can use to pollute the virtues of the people of our righteous, Christian nation.”
“I personally want to welcome Mr. Comstock to the 21st century,” Smith rebutted, adding, “where women can currently vote, own property, hold public office, and even wear pants.”
The appearance was a chance for Smith to spread awareness about the 1800s law, and about the bill she had introduced a few months earlier, the Stop Comstock Act, which aims to repeal the part of the law that could be used to prohibit the mailing of abortion-related items.
Smith, who has been a senator since 2018, was one of the first elected officials to raise alarms about Comstock, and has continued to prioritize its threat in the weeks since Trump won the presidential election. Before joining public office, Smith worked as Planned Parenthood’s executive vice president of external affairs in Minnesota—making her the highest-ranking former Planned Parenthood executive in US politics, and the only senator to ever work for the organization. This experience, she told me, taught her “how fundamental it is that access to health care is there for people,” and “that we can trust people to make the decisions without a bunch of politicians trying to tell them what to do or tell them when to do it or tell them how to do it.”
In an interview with Vanity Fair, which has been edited for length and clarity, Smith explained when Comstock first got on her radar, why she’s focusing on what antiabortion politicians are doing—not saying—and how her office plans to operate in an era where Republicans control the Senate, House, and White House.
Vanity Fair: I just wanted to start off by asking a bit about your Stop Comstock Act. Where does that bill stand going into 2025?
Tina Smith: So the Stop Comstock Act has about 22 cosponsors, all Democrats. We wanted to introduce that bill in order to draw attention to this old zombie law that we knew had the potential, in a Trump administration, of being the tool that they would use to deny people’s access to abortion care, even without any action from Congress. And so there it sits. Of course, there’s no chance of the Stop Comstock Act moving forward, given the change in power and given the Republicans’ control of the House and the Senate and the presidency. But I think these folks using that old zombie law would have a real impact on women’s lives.
