Alabama cannot prosecute those who help travel for abortion, judge rules

By Brendan Pierson

April 1 (Reuters) - Alabama cannot prosecute people and organizations who help residents of the state travel elsewhere to get abortions, a federal judge has ruled, in one of the first decisions over the right to travel for abortion.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson in Montgomery, Alabama found on Monday that the state cannot interfere with the basic constitutional right to travel, and that prosecuting doctors or organizations for helping patients would violate their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The ruling is a victory for healthcare provider West Alabama Women's Center and doctor Yashica Robinson, as well as for the Yellowhammer Fund, a group that helps people raise money to access abortion.

They had sued Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall to block him from prosecuting them after he said in a 2022 radio interview that those who help state residents travel for abortion could be prosecuted as accomplices to a crime.

"The court's decision today should send a strong message to any and all anti-abortion politicians who are considering similar efforts to muzzle health care providers or penalize those who assist others in crossing state lines to obtain legal abortion: such attacks on free speech and the fundamental right to travel fly in the face of the Constitution and cannot stand," Meagan Burrows of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents West Alabama Women's Center, said in a statement.

Marshall's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Marshall had argued in court that the state had an interest in preventing its residents from aiding in conduct that it has criminalized.

But Thompson, who was appointed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, said that if that argument were upheld, Marshall "would have within his reach the authority to prosecute Alabamians planning a Las Vegas bachelor party, complete with casinos and gambling, since casino-style gambling is outlawed in Alabama."

Americans' right to travel to other states for abortion, and to help others do so, has come into question since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade precedent on abortion rights, allowing states to criminalize the procedure. The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research group, found that travel for abortion more than doubled in the first half of 2023 compared with the first half of 2020.

Thompson noted in Monday's decision that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump, wrote in a concurrence to the high court's opinion reversing Roe that the Constitution protects the right to travel. The issue could ultimately end up before the Supreme Court.

In another case, a federal appeals court largely allowed Idaho to enforce a law against "trafficking" minors to other states for abortion without their parents' consent, but blocked a part of the law that prohibits "recruiting" minors to get abortions on First Amendment grounds.

Some local governments in Texas have also passed laws aiming to curb out-of-state travel for abortion, which do not yet appear to have been tested in court.

The case is Yellowhammer Fund v. Marshall, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, No. 2:23-cv-00450.

For West Alabama Women's Center: Meagan Burrows of the American Civil Liberties Union, Alison Mollman of ACLU of Alabama and others

For Yellowhammer: Jamila Johnson of The Lawyering Project, Krista Dolan of Southern Poverty Law Center and others

For the Attorney General: Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Seiss

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