Family · Nationwide · October 1, 2026
Pro-Life Group Urges DOJ to Enforce 1873 Law Against Mail-Order Abortion Pills
What Alinsky tactic is being used
2 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The entire move in this story is Rule 4 run by the pro-life side: ROAF is not asking Congress for a new statute, it is pointing at an 1873 law still sitting in the federal criminal code and demanding that the administration live up to its own book of rules by enforcing it. The specific pressure point is a rules document — the December 2022 Office of Legal Counsel opinion — which ROAF wants Attorney General Blanche to withdraw, and Blanche has said the Department's interpretation is under review. The leverage comes entirely from the gap between what the books say and what the executive branch has actually done.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
The tactic only works where the gap is real, so close the gap on your own side first: before you repeat 'mailing abortion pills is already a federal crime,' read the statute's text and the OLC opinion yourself on justice.gov and notice that the opinion turns on the sender's intent, not on a claim that the Act was repealed. Hold your own claims to the same standard you are demanding of DOJ — if you cite the report in a Sunday class, bring the report and the FDA label and let people read both. Refuse to say 'the law is clear' when an official contrary reading exists and is on the table; say instead what the statute says and what DOJ currently says it means.
Rule 11
“If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.”
The report's load-bearing numbers are pushed hard: 'directly responsible' for more than 300,000 abortions in 2025 — a figure for a year not yet concluded — and serious adverse events in 10.9%–11.2% of drug-induced abortions, described as far above the FDA label rate. That second figure comes from an insurance-claims analysis by an advocacy think tank, not from a peer-reviewed trial, and the breadth of what gets counted as an 'adverse event' is exactly where the other side will aim. One overstated figure repeated from a pulpit is the only weapon that works permanently against the people repeating it.
Counter-Rule 11 · Proportional Truth
Refuse to overclaim, even where it would help. One exaggeration hands the other side the only weapon that works permanently.
Before you say 'one in ten women end up in the emergency room,' pull the source document and read its own definition of a serious adverse event, then name the publisher out loud when you use it: 'an insurance-claims analysis by a pro-life research center, not a peer-reviewed study, found X.' Say 'projected' where the number is projected. If someone in your group rounds 10.9% up to 'more than one in ten' or turns a projection into a count, correct it in the room, that week — the correction costs you nothing and buys you the right to be believed on the next figure.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
Know where you stand
The free 4-minute assessment identifies your mountain and your institution’s capture phase — so alerts like this one arrive matched to where you actually stand.
Facing this yourself? Ask. Describe what is happening and get what the book, Scripture, and the law of your state say, with the exact words to use. Your first one is free.