Federal judge blasts threat by Alabama to prosecute groups aiding out-of-state abortions

A federal judge smacked down a series of threats by Alabama’s Republican attorney general to prosecute groups that help women obtain out-of-state abortions, weighing into a debate over access to the procedure that has lingered since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago.

A federal judge smacked down a series of threats by Alabama’s Republican attorney general to prosecute groups that help women obtain out-of-state abortions, wading into a debate over access to the procedure that has lingered since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. The plaintiffs, including a group called the Yellowhammer Fund that helps women obtain out-of-state abortions, sued Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall after he suggested prosecution might be possible for groups that “aid and abet abortions,” including by helping women travel out of state. That issue has been closely watched by advocates on both sides of the abortion debate as red states across the country ban or severely limit access to the procedure in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. That has forced many women seeking an abortion in a clinical setting to cross state lines. “The right to interstate travel is one of our most fundamental constitutional rights,” US District Judge Myron Thompson wrote in a preliminary ruling late Monday. “Alabama can no more restrict people from going to, say, California to engage in what is lawful there than California can restrict people from coming to Alabama to do what is lawful here,” Thompson wrote. The suits were brought not by women seeking an out-of-state abortion but rather by groups that intend to help them. Thompson, appointed to the bench by President Jimmy Carter, wrote that a patient’s right to travel was “inextricably bound up” with those groups. Collectively, he wrote, the groups receive as many as 95 inquiries each week asking about the availability of out-of-state abortions.