CV NEWS FEED // Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall cannot prosecute people who assist others in traveling out of state to get an abortion, a federal judge ruled March 31.
According to the Alabama Reflector, U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson ruled that prosecution under those circumstances would violate state residents’ First Amendment rights and their freedom to travel.
CatholicVote previously reported that Marshall, a Republican, said shortly after the state’s near-comprehensive pro-life legislation went into effect in 2022 that he would consider prosecuting anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion for conspiring to commit a crime. An abortion advocacy group and a women’s reproductive health clinic promptly sued him.
“An elective abortion performed in Alabama would be a criminal offense; thus, a conspiracy formed in the State to have that same act performed outside the State is illegal,” his office stated in an August 2023 court filing, the Alabama Reflector reported.
The outlet reported that Thompson’s March 31 ruling repeated part of his ruling from Marshall’s May 2024 motion to dismiss the case.
Thompson wrote, “At its core, this case is simply about whether a state may prevent people within its borders from going to another state, and from assisting others in going to another state, to engage in lawful conduct there.”
He added, “The court now answers no, a state cannot.”
In addition to ruling that prosecution for assisting a pregnant woman to obtain an abortion by leaving the state would infringe on travel rights, Thompson ruled that it would unlawfully restrict free speech rights. Marshall had argued that discussing intent to obtain an abortion out of state would constitute criminal action that would fall under the Giboney exception, which restricts “speech that is directly part of or essential to committing a crime,” according to the Alabama Reflector.
Thompson wrote, “The attorney general has presented no other reason to deny the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claim besides his attempt to invoke the Giboney exception, which, as stated, does not extend to speech in furtherance of lawful out-of-state conduct.”
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