Letter to the Editor: Illinois has consistently violated morality, ethics by permitting laws like Reproductive Health Act

It has come to the attention of Students for Life of America that the attorney advising the Quincy City Council on the Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance has voiced opposition to making Quincy a sanctuary city for the unborn while also claiming to hold pro-life values.

The aldermen and alderwomen who passed this very same ordinance in Danville, Ill., earlier this year heard the same false rhetoric that they would face lawsuits from the state of Illinois if they so much as dared to look towards that authority which supersedes state law.

Upholding the Comstock Act, a federal law, in the face of a state’s failure to adhere to said law is the duty and obligation of every publicly elected official. This ordinance will only take effect should Comstock be upheld. For a so-called pro-life attorney to claim that council members will face lawsuits for abiding by federal law is unprecedented to say the least.

Students for Life of America offers in-depth analysis of the Comstock Act, which reports:

“First enacted in 1873, the Comstock Act said that the U.S. Postal Service could not be used to send pornography, contraception and abortion-inducing drugs or devices. Prohibitions against mailing contraception were dropped, some of them after court cases. The law stands when it comes to stopping the mailing of abortifacients, defined as things with the intent of ending a preborn life.”

You can read 18 U.S. Code § 1461 — mailing obscene or crime-inciting matter — at the Cornell Law School website. The words are not difficult to understand: “Every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; and every 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 … ” is not to be mailed.

The law is clear.

The state of Illinois has consistently violated morality and ethics by permitting state laws like the Reproductive Health Act of 2019 to walk back basic measures such as mandated reporting of a woman’s death in an abortion facility and mandated inspections and licenses for abortion facilities by the Department of Health. In any medical field, this would be malpractice of the highest order, but the abortion industry has been consistently coddled by Illinois state lawmakers.

I ask you now, aldermen and alderwomen of Quincy, to hold your state accountable and uphold the law by looking to Comstock and voting yes on an ordinance to make Quincy a sanctuary city for the unborn.

Tom Usle
Upper Midwest Regional Coordinator
Students for Life of America
Valparaiso, Indiana