When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the state of Alabama began enforcing its total abortion ban, which prohibits abortion at all stages of pregnancy except when the life of the mother is in danger. (There are not exceptions for rape or incest.)
In July 2023, the ACLU, West Alabama’s Women’s Center, and Yellowhammer Fund, a non-profit organization which helped fund abortions in Alabama before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the right to an abortion with its Dobbs decision, filed a lawsuit against Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who claims he has the authority to prosecute with criminal conspiracy charges anyone (abortion funds, clinics) who tries to help someone in Alabama access abortion out-of-state.
The Yellowhammer Fund lawsuit argues that a conspiracy prosecution would be unconstitutional as it would threaten free speech protected under the First Amendment, “curtail the constitutional right to travel; and violate the full faith and credit clause, which requires that state courts respect other states’ laws and court judgments.”
Marshall has filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ lawsuit and argues that the State can prosecute speech that facilitates abortion travel just as the State can “prevent a mobster from asking a hitman to kill a rival.“
As MSNBC points out: “the law is a mess when it comes to whether criminal laws like Alabama’s can apply extraterritorially — not least because states have not tried to police what happens in other jurisdictions since the Civil War. That makes Marshall’s threat deadly serious.”
I'm not seeing enough people talking about this horrific move by Republican officials in Alabama to restrict women's freedom of movement. You've got to be kidding me.https://t.co/suYauIYw1m
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 6, 2023
As seen above and below, when former New York Senator and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called Marshall’s move “horrific,” he replied: “Horrific? Your position is that abortion should be permitted up until the time of a baby’s birth. I’m not seeing enough people talk about that.”
Horrific? Your position is that abortion should be permitted up until the time of a baby’s birth. I’m not seeing enough people talk about that. https://t.co/1DPEi87Z4N
— Attorney General Steve Marshall (@AGSteveMarshall) September 6, 2023
Note: During a 2016 presidential debate, Donald Trump claimed that Clinton would allow abortions so late doctors could “rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.” Clinton called Trump’s language “scare rhetoric.”
Clinton has said that she believes mothers should be allowed to terminate a pregnancy at any point – up until birth – if her life is in danger, but abortions as late in a pregnancy as Trump suggested are rare — 1.3 percent of abortions in the U.S. are performed at late term (after 21 weeks of pregnancy).
Clinton said at the debate: “The government has no business in the decisions women make with their families, in accordance with their faith, with medical advice, and I will stand up for that right.”
