Nov. 13, 2023
By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press
A federal judge and the U.S. Department of Justice this week said that states are going too far by trying to block people from helping others cross state lines for abortion.
A ruling in Idaho and the federal government taking sides in an Alabama lawsuit are far from the final word, but they could offer clues on whether an emerging area of abortion regulation may eventfully hold up in court.
A husband who doesn’t want his wife to get an abortion could sue the friend who offered to drive her, according to this legislation’s own architect
Moira Donegan
Tue 12 Sep 2023
How free can any woman be in a country where her right to control her body and family depends on the jurisdiction where she happens to live? Republicans are looking to find out. Over the past few weeks, as Republican officials in anti-choice states seek to make their abortion bans enforceable and compel women into childbirth, a new front has opened up in the abortion wars: roads. The anti-choice movement, through a series of inventive legal theories and cynical legislative maneuvers, is now attacking women’s right to travel.
In a court filing last month, the Alabama attorney general, Steve Marshall, wrote that he believed his office had a right to prosecute those who help women travel across state lines in search of an abortion. The filing comes in a lawsuit from two women’s health clinics and an abortion fund, which sued Marshall after he publicly stated his intention to criminally investigate organizations like theirs, which provide financial and logistical help to pregnant patients seeking to leave the state. In his response, Marshall unequivocally stated that Alabama, which bans all abortions with no rape or incest exemption, views any effort to help women cross state lines as a “criminal conspiracy”.
By Sarah Owermohle
Jan. 19, 2023
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators’ green light for pharmacists to dispense abortion pills is crashing into legal questions and simmering court battles.
The Food and Drug Administration earlier this month removed a longtime restriction that only doctors could dispense mifepristone, which is approved for abortions up to 10 weeks. The move opens the door for pharmacists to supply the drugs and shores up protections for mail orders, which have become an important channel for abortion access in the wake of Roe’s overturn last summer.
Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2023/01/19/abortion-pills-at-pharmacies-legal-quagmires/
The attorney general of Alabama finally went where the logic of the anti-abortion movement has long pointed.
BY DAVID DAYEN
JANUARY 16, 2023
Back when Donald Trump was just a presidential candidate, he was asked by Chris Matthews if he thought abortions should be dealt with under the law, like any other crime. He replied, “There has to be some form of punishment,” specifically saying he meant that the women who obtained abortions should be punished. After his handlers realized what he’d said, he quickly reversed himself, saying that if abortion were banned through the courts or legislation, the punishment should be reserved for “the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman.”
Some Republicans still draw the line there, reserving any legal action over abortions to those who conduct them. … But this don’t-punish-the-woman line is no longer unapproachable.
Continued: https://prospect.org/health/2023-01-16-prosecution-women-mifepristone-abortion-alabama/
Legislation in Oklahoma and remarks from the Alabama attorney general could foreshadow new efforts to punish people who induce their own abortions.
Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
January 13, 2023
As state lawmakers weigh new restrictions on abortion, some Republicans are revisiting a longstanding taboo of not prosecuting pregnant people for seeking abortions in places where the procedure is banned, though the topic remains divisive among anti-abortion advocates.
State restrictions have so far fallen just shy of imposing criminal penalties on people who seek abortions, instead targeting physicians, health care providers and anyone else who might help someone get an abortion.
Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/01/abortion-bans-pregnant-people-prosecution/
In Alabama, pregnant women are subjected to a work around law in the name of protecting the fetus: chemical endangerment of a child
Moira Donegan
Fri 13 Jan 2023
This week, Steve Marshall, Alabama’s Republican attorney general, said he sees a path to prosecuting women for having abortions in his state. This was a bit of a faux pas: a moment of letting slip the mask that the anti-abortion movement always tries to keep on.
Alabama’s abortion ban, which has only limited exemptions for women’s lives, makes providing an abortion a felony, punishable by up to 99 years in prison. But like nearly all of the abortion bans that have sprung into effect since the US supreme court’s ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health overturned Roe v Wade last June, the law has no mechanism to prosecute women who receive abortions. But that doesn’t mean that patients are safe from criminal charges, according to the state’s top prosecutor.
Every State That’s Tried to Ban Abortion Over the Coronavirus
By Hannah Gold
Apr. 7, 2020
Just days into the national surge of coronavirus cases, as an increasing amount of states called for nonessential businesses to shut down, some Republican legislators began using the public health crisis as an opportunity to deny health care to patients seeking abortions. The tactic has been replicated in the past couple of weeks, with governors in several states peddling the cynical argument that temporarily banning abortion will help shore up their supply of medical gear for hospitals overwhelmed by the pandemic.
So far, lawmakers in five states — Ohio, Texas, Alabama, Iowa, and Oklahoma — have attempted to halt abortion services indefinitely. As of now, only the Texas order has taken effect, and all of these temporary bans face strong legal challenges. Last week, providers in Alabama, Iowa, Ohio, and Oklahoma filed lawsuits to prevent the orders from taking effect in their states. A similar lawsuit was filed in Texas last week as well.
Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2020/04/every-state-thats-tried-to-ban-abortion-over-coronavirus.html
U.S. federal judge blocks Alabama’s near total-ban on abortion
By KIM CHANDLER The Associated Press
Posted October 29, 2019
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Alabama‘s near-total abortion ban from taking effect next month, saying the law, part wave of new abortion restrictions by conservative states, is clearly unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson issued an expected preliminary injunction temporarily blocking Alabama from enforcing the law that would make performing an abortion a felony in almost all cases. The ruling came after abortion providers sued to block the law from taking effect Nov. 15. The injunction will remain in place until Thompson decides the full case.
Continued: https://globalnews.ca/news/6096827/alabama-abortion-ban-blocked/
Supreme Court Rejects Alabama Bid to Bar Common Abortion Method
By Greg Stohr
June 28, 2019
The U.S. Supreme Court steered clear of the nation’s fractious abortion debate, refusing to consider Alabama’s effort to ban the most common method used for women in their second trimester of pregnancy.
The state was seeking to revive a ban on a method, known as dilation and evacuation, that involves dismembering the fetus and then removing it from the uterus. Alabama called the procedure a “particularly gruesome type of abortion” that states have the power to prohibit.
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