The state’s ability to prevent people through abortions across state boundaries faces a critical hearing Wednesday as Alabama abortion rights advocates face the state attorney general over the threat of prosecuting groups that help women travel for proceedings.
A few months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 and approved a way for Alabama to ban virtually all abortions, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has repeatedly proposed that abortion rights activists who support people for abortion could be charged as participants in illegal conspiracies. The Yellow Hammer Fund was the West Alabama Women’s Center, a former abortion clinic that pivoted to provide services like miscarriage management, which helped people pay for procedures, along with other abortion rights advocates to sue Marshall in his comments.
Now, experts worry that Alabama’s victory will serve as a green light for other states’ efforts to attack people who want to end their pregnancy but live in states that ban abortions.
“If you went to Las Vegas and gamble, but your state doesn’t allow it, you don’t expect your AG to suggest that someone who helped gamble in another state will be charged, fined and jailed.”
“It’s a real infringement of what we take for granted about how the state treats each other, but even within the state, the state directs the power of law enforcement against those who have done something that is not illegal.”
Since the Marshall threat, the Yellow Hammer Fund has stopped paying for people legal out-of-state abortions, but the West Alabama Women’s Center is unable to help patients looking for out-of-state abortions, according to court documents. The plaintiffs in the suit receive about 95 questions each week from people looking for abortions outside of Alabama.
“The majority of our client patients have either poor income or low income. “We have a strong presence at ACLU’s senior staff attorney, representing the West Alabama Women’s Center (now known as WAWC Healthcare), said:
“All of these patients are suffering very much from their clients, very confused about their legal environment and legal options, and we are reaching out to local healthcare providers who trust local healthcare providers in Alabama, and our clients have to carry them on their shoulders.”
The Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. However, the court application doubled Marshall’s claims. “Captable abortion committed in Alabama is a criminal offence. Therefore, conspiracy formed in a state to carry out the same act outside the state is illegal,” one simple read.
Wednesday’s hearing in federal court in Montgomery will address requests from both sides to advance for general judgment or without a full trial.
Despite the downfall of ROE, which unleashed a wave of abortion bans in most of the US South and Midwest, US abortions have been on the rise in recent years. Abortion rights advocates say the rise is largely planned for travel. Because coastal abortion clinics are taking more and more steps to women fleeing the state with the ban.
In response, abortion prevention activists began testing different ways to attack abortion trips outside the state, including limiting their stories. In Texas, activists have withdrawn abortion funds. This has helped people travel out of state for abortions, got caught up in lawsuits and asked them to take over information about past abortions. Idaho and Tennessee have passed laws banning “abortion trafficking.” This defines the transport of minors for abortion without parental consent, and “recruiting” minors for abortion. The court blocked the “recruitment” provisions of Idaho law, citing Section 1 concerns while another court has suspended enforcement of Tennessee’s entire law.
“Criminal penalties for helpers, penalties for healthcare providers, what you’re looking at is anti-(abortion) politicians trying to stop people who help pregnant people and pregnant people seek care,” Elizabeth Smith, the Breeding Rights Center’s State Policy Director, told The Guardian last year. “Pregnant people are essentially isolated and unable to seek the care they need when they want it.”
Also, abortions have risen with the emergence of the blue “shielded method.” It aims to protect providers who distribute abortion medications throughout the state line. Abortion opponents have also targeted these providers in recent weeks. Louisiana charged a New York doctor who allegedly distributed abortion drugs, but Texas filed a lawsuit against the same doctor.
Mary Ziegler, who studies the legal history of reproduction, believes that all these efforts are intertwined. “It’s part of a broader set of questions about when states can project force across borders,” Ziegler said.
Regardless of the outcome of Wednesday’s hearing, the Red State appears to be in war already. “The Attorney General is taking full speed even with regard to out-of-state accused,” said Ziegler, a professor of law at the University of California, Davis University. “I think my gloves came off after the election was over.”
A ruling for a summary judgment request is expected in the coming weeks.
