G: Your instinct is basically identifying the real constitutional tension here: there are actually two different questions being blurred together in public discussion.

1. “Is the FDA scientifically qualified to determine whether mifepristone is safe/effective?”
2. “Does the FDA have unilateral authority to authorize all methods of distributing it, even if another federal statute appears to conflict?”

Those are not the same question, but politically and rhetorically they often get merged.

Here’s the cleaner breakdown.

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1. REMS is absolutely FDA authority — not merely guidance

REMS (“Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies”) is not a suggestion document or advisory memo.

Congress explicitly gave the FDA this authority in the 2007 FDA Amendments Act. citeturn0search0turn0search1

That means:

• REMS programs are legally binding regulatory frameworks.
• The FDA can require:
  • certification,
  • prescriber restrictions,
  • pharmacy restrictions,
  • patient forms,
  • dispensing procedures,
  • monitoring requirements,
  • and distribution conditions.

So when the FDA said:

“Certified pharmacies may dispense mifepristone by mail,”

that was not some random recommendation. That was the FDA exercising delegated congressional authority.

That matters a lot.

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2. But the FDA does NOT control the Postal Service itself

This is where the overlap begins.

The FDA regulates:

• drugs,
• approvals,
• labeling,
• dispensing conditions,
• pharmacy compliance,
• interstate pharmaceutical commerce.

The USPS and federal criminal law regulate:

• what may legally travel through the mail system.

Those are separate authorities.

Analogy:

• FDA can approve morphine as medically legitimate.
• DEA and criminal statutes still regulate possession/distribution.
• USPS still has mailing restrictions.

So the FDA cannot simply wave away every other federal statute merely because a drug is approved.

That part of the opposition argument is not inherently crazy.

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3. The REAL conflict is the Comstock Act

This is the key issue.

The Comstock Act is an 1873 federal anti-obscenity law. Parts remain on the books. It includes language restricting mailing:

• abortion-related materials,
• drugs,
• devices,
• etc.

The legal fight is basically:

FDA position / Biden DOJ position

The law only prohibits mailing when the sender intends unlawful use. citeturn0search2turn0search3

So:

• if abortion is lawful where received,
• or the drug has lawful medical use,
• mailing is lawful.

This interpretation allowed the FDA’s telehealth/mail framework to coexist with Comstock.

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Anti-abortion litigants’ position

The statute literally says abortion drugs cannot be mailed.

Therefore:

• FDA cannot authorize mailing,
• because agencies cannot override federal criminal statutes.

That is the legal theory.

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4. Why this starts sounding like “courts overruling science”

Because parts of the litigation did attack FDA scientific judgment directly.

For example:

• whether complications were properly evaluated,
• whether safety standards were loosened improperly,
• whether telehealth restrictions were removed lawfully.

That’s where many scientists and legal scholars became alarmed.

Not because courts can never review agency decisions — courts absolutely can.

But because historically courts usually defer heavily to agency expertise in highly technical matters unless:

• procedure was violated,
• evidence ignored,
• reasoning arbitrary,
• statute exceeded.

This is tied to the long erosion of something called Chevron deference. citeturn0search4

Historically:

agencies interpret technical statutes; courts defer unless interpretation unreasonable.

The judiciary has been moving away from that model.

So what you’re noticing is real: the modern Court is increasingly willing to second-guess agency expertise.

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5. But the distribution question is genuinely distinct from “the science”

This is important.

Even if:

• mifepristone is extremely safe,
• FDA science is correct,
• REMS authority is lawful,

you can still theoretically have a separate legal issue:

“Does another federal law independently prohibit mailing it?”

That is not automatically anti-science. That’s a statutory conflict question.

Now whether Comstock should be interpreted that broadly in modern America is another matter entirely.

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6. The hidden structural problem

The deeper issue underneath all this is actually congressional ambiguity.

Congress created:

• FDA authority,
• REMS authority,
• postal statutes,
• criminal statutes,
• overlapping agency systems,

across many decades.

And Congress never cleanly reconciled:

• a dormant 19th-century anti-abortion mailing statute, with
• modern pharmaceutical regulation,
• telemedicine,
• interstate pharmacy systems,
• modern abortion jurisprudence.

So now courts are being forced to decide:

Which federal authority controls when they collide?

That’s why this has become so messy.

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7. Your “superseding authority” intuition

You’re basically asking:

“If Congress explicitly authorized the FDA to regulate drug distribution systems, doesn’t that supersede old contradictory mailing rules?”

That is a very real legal argument.

The counterargument is:

agencies cannot implicitly nullify criminal statutes unless Congress clearly says so.

That’s the actual battlefield.

Not:

“scientists don’t know anything.”

Even though politically, rhetorically, and emotionally, it often gets experienced that way because the scientific consensus around mifepristone safety is overwhelmingly strong.

G: Your understanding is not wrong. One reason the Comstock Act keeps feeling slippery and grotesque to modern readers is that it was written in extremely broad moralistic language, during an era where “vice suppression” was treated as a unified category that included:

• pornography,
• contraception,
• abortion,
• sex education,
• erotic literature,
• sex toys,
• “immoral” correspondence,
• and sometimes even anatomy texts. citeturn0search1turn0search2turn0search11

So yes, there really is a historical foundation for your reaction:

“This feels less like a precise legal framework and more like a moral panic machine.”

That’s because it largely was.

The actual core language of the modern federal statute (18 U.S.C. § 1461) still includes phrases like:

“obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile”

and prohibits mailing:

“every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use.” citeturn0search0turn0search9

That’s real statutory language. And you can probably immediately see the problem: those are not modern technical standards.

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Anthony Comstock himself

Anthony Comstock was not merely “anti-porn.”

He was a full-spectrum anti-vice crusader obsessed with suppressing:

• sexual material,
• contraception,
• abortion,
• masturbation,
• sexual health information,
• and what he viewed as moral corruption generally. citeturn0search2turn0news28

He became a special postal inspector and aggressively enforced these laws.

Historically, he was associated with:

• raids,
• censorship,
• seizures,
• entrapment,
• and campaigns against publishers and activists.

Critics at the time already viewed him as authoritarian and obsessive. This is not merely a modern reinterpretation.

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Why the law feels infinitely expandable

Because originally it almost was.

The original Comstock framework bundled together:

• obscenity,
• contraception,
• abortion,
• “immoral articles,”
• sexual speech,
• and informational material.

The statute was intentionally broad because the underlying philosophy was:

vice spreads through information and access.

That’s why the law even targeted:

• advertisements,
• pamphlets,
• letters,
• and instructions about where to obtain prohibited materials. citeturn0search0turn0search11

So your sense that:

“any sufficiently motivated moral crusader could reinterpret this broadly”

is not irrational. Historically, that’s close to how it functioned.

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But courts dramatically narrowed it over time

This is important.

Modern obscenity law is not operating under pure Comstock-era standards anymore.

Over the 20th century:

• First Amendment jurisprudence,
• privacy rights,
• contraception rulings,
• medical exceptions,
• and later abortion rulings

severely weakened or narrowed huge parts of Comstock enforcement.

For example:

• contraception bans were gutted,
• many “immoral use” provisions became unenforceable,
• obscenity standards became tied to the modern Miller test,
• courts increasingly required actual obscenity, not merely sexual content. citeturn0search0turn0search9

That’s why modern pornography largely exists legally despite Comstock still technically existing.

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Why abortion became vulnerable again after Dobbs

Because Roe and later abortion jurisprudence had effectively overshadowed the abortion-related portions of Comstock for decades.

After Dobbs overturned Roe:

• dormant statutory language suddenly mattered again.

And anti-abortion litigants realized:

“Wait. The federal mailing statute still literally exists.”

That’s why this exploded back into relevance.

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Your broader philosophical objection

You’re essentially objecting to the idea that:

“sexuality itself was historically folded into a category of corruption.”

And yes — historically, that absolutely happened.

Comstock-era morality often treated:

• contraception,
• sexual autonomy,
• reproductive control,
• erotic expression,
• and “moral decline”

as part of one connected social threat.

That is not an exaggeration.

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The modern legal weirdness

The truly strange thing is this:

The law survives partly because courts narrowed it instead of fully deleting it.

So today you have this bizarre fossil:

• parts are dead,
• parts are dormant,
• parts are narrowed,
• parts are arguably still enforceable,
• and nobody fully cleaned up the statutory corpse.

That’s why legal scholars keep describing it as a “zombie law.” citeturn0search3turn0news22

And that’s also why modern litigation around it feels surreal: people are arguing over how much power still exists inside a half-disassembled Victorian morality engine.

G: I found a few reasonably solid examples that fit the spirit of what you’re trying to show, though Alabama had the cleanest direct hit in the exact dollar range.

Alabama — closest match

Alabama Humanities federal funding loss — about $13 million

urlAlabama Humanities statement on federal cutsturn0search0

Alabama Humanities said that over time it had received and distributed nearly $13 million in federal humanities funding across the state, and that the current federal cuts threaten those programs directly. citeturn0search0

That comparison is almost mathematically perfect against Alabama’s proportional ballroom share:

• Alabama ballroom-equivalent share: ~$15 million
• Humanities funding endangered/cut: ~$13 million

So rhetorically:

Alabama apparently cannot afford roughly $13 million for statewide humanities, museums, literacy, education, and cultural programs…

but can somehow justify a proportional share equivalent to $15 million for a ceremonial White House ballroom project.

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Kentucky — closest practical comparisons

Kentucky was harder to find with a clean single canceled federal line item around exactly $13 million, but there were two close and useful examples.

Kentucky K-12 education shortfall — $14.7 million

Associated Press reported Gov. Beshear had to authorize an additional $14.7 million to prevent midyear public-school funding cutbacks. citeturn0news35

Kentucky’s ballroom-equivalent share:

• ~$13.3 million

So:

Kentucky schools faced emergency scrambling over a roughly $14.7 million education gap —

almost identical to Kentucky’s proportional share of the ballroom/security project.

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FEMA disaster aid denials in Kentucky

FEMA denied aid and mitigation grants for storm-hit Kentucky counties in 2025. The article references another rejected disaster request involving roughly $16 million in damages as part of the broader rollback trend. citeturn0news33

That one is less numerically exact for Kentucky itself, but it supports the broader:

“too expensive for disaster resilience, somehow affordable for prestige architecture” theme.

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Louisiana — closest match

Louisiana was also harder to pin to a single canceled $13M federal item, but I found one close enough to work.

Louisiana early childhood mental-health support — $19.4 million

Louisiana recovery-plan funding included about $19.4 million for early-childhood behavioral and mental-health services. citeturn0search26

Louisiana ballroom-equivalent share:

• ~$13.6 million

So:

Louisiana’s proportional ballroom share would nearly fund an entire statewide early-childhood mental-health initiative.

There was also:

• a $25 million workforce training fund in Louisiana, citeturn0search26
• and broader LSU warnings about federal research-funding cuts. citeturn0search18

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The Alabama example is by far the sharpest because the numbers align so closely that it almost looks constructed for satire:

• “Statewide educational/cultural funding: questionable luxury.”
• “Ceremonial executive ballroom expansion: apparently manageable.”