MONTGOMERY — The state cannot prosecute people and groups who help Alabama women travel to other states to obtain abortions, a federal judge ruled Monday.
According to The Associated Press, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson sided with an abortion fund and medical providers who sued Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall after he suggested they could face prosecution under anti-conspiracy laws. Thompson’s ruling declared that such prosecutions would violate both the First Amendment and a person’s right to travel, the AP said.
A spokesperson for the Alabama attorney general’s office told the AP “the office is reviewing the decision to determine the state’s options.”
Alabama bans abortion at any stage of pregnancy with no exceptions for rape and incest.
The AP said Thompson compared it to the state trying to prosecute Alabamians planning a Las Vegas bachelor party since casino gambling is outlawed in the state.
“It is one thing for Alabama to outlaw by statute what happens in its own backyard,” Thompson wrote in the 131-page opinion. “It is another thing for the state to enforce its values and laws, as chosen by the attorney general, outside its boundaries by punishing its citizens and others who help individuals travel to another state to engage in conduct that is lawful there but the attorney general finds to be contrary to Alabama’s values and laws.”
In court documents, Marshall contended that assisting people travel out of state for abortions is a criminal conspiracy to get around the law. He also argued the First Amendment does not protect speech used to conduct a crime.
But Thompson didn’t buy that argument.
“The Attorney General’s characterization of the right to travel as merely a right to move physically between the States contravenes history, precedent, and common sense,” Thompson wrote. “Such a constrained conception of the right to travel would erode the privileges of national citizenship and is inconsistent with the Constitution.”
