For the free speech community, the recent recent oral arguments over the expanded access to the abortion pill, mifepristone, contained a chilling jump-scare as two justices raised the applicability of the Comstock Act.

That 151-year-old law banned the mailing of materials that were deemed “obscene, lewd, [or] lascivious.” The ban included everything ranging from contraception to pornography. It remains one of the most glaring attacks on free speech principles in our federal code.

The relevance of the Comstock Act to the issue of the availability of mifepristone is highly contested and unlikely to draw a majority on the Court. Indeed, while this same argument has been embraced by lower court judges, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito appear to be outliers on the Supreme Court in raising its possible relevance in this case.

For some of us, this is a painful reminder that the law continues to linger on our books. In my forthcoming book, "The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage," I criticize the Comstock Act and call for Congress to repeal it as a protection of free speech. It still reflects the intolerance and arbitrariness of its namesake, the poisonous figure Anthony Comstock.

For the free speech community, naming a law after Comstock is akin to naming a law on business ethics after Bernie Madoff.

Comstock personified the hate and intolerance that sustains censorship systems. He was born........

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