Alabama attorney general says he has right to prosecute people who facilitate travel for out-of-state abortions
Alabama’s Republican attorney general said in a court filing that he has the right to prosecute people who make travel arrangements for pregnant women to have out-of-state abortions.
In a court filing Monday, attorneys for Attorney General Steve Marshall wrote that providing transportation for women in Alabama to leave the state to get an abortion could amount to a “criminal conspiracy.”
The court filing comes in response to lawsuits against Marshall that was filed in July from two women’s health centers and Yellowhammer Fund, an organization which says it provides “financial and practical support for those who are pregnant and require assistance.” The plaintiffs argue that Marshall violated their constitutional rights by publicly stating that organizations which help pregnant women in Alabama get an abortion out of state could be criminally investigated.
“Alabama can no more regulate out-of-state abortions than another state can deem its laws legalizing abortions to apply to Alabama,” the Yellowhammer Fund lawsuit argues.
No. No he doesn't. He simply doesn't have that right. It's not even disputable.
Sorry, you'll have to bring back the Fugitive Slave Act first.
Don't give the Supreme Court ideas...
It would literally have to go to SCOTUS because it is simply not legal on the state level to charge people with crimes they didn't commit in that state. Marijuana is not legal in Indiana. You can't prosecute someone for buying and smoking it in Michigan or Illinois.
And I don't think even SCOTUS would mess with that. They're evil but they're not that crazy.
This is why the crime is facilitation, because facilitation takes place in state. It's designed purposefully and fully hypocritically to ignore the rights of other states to set their own law.
There is no crime to facilitate. If something is illegal in one state and you cross the state line to do it, you are explicitly avoiding committing a crime.
The crime (stupid as it is) is getting an abortion in Alabama. No one facilitated that because it didn't happen.
If you drive from a dry country to a wet one to buy beer, no one will be able to charge you with anything. There are exceptions in federal law for leaving the US to commit felonies (like child prostitution), but those are more serious and on the federal level.
This argument misses the point. For Republicans, states' rights don't exist to ensure a sectioned legal system on a state level. They exist to ensure fascist dictatorships in every state where they can be constructed and then to extend the reach of those dictatorships over as many other states as possible. This has always been the goal. To enforce their will on as many people as possible.
The Defense of Marriage Act did the same thing. It allowed states to ban gay marriage in their state and then allowed them to refuse to acknowledge marriage certificates for gay couples from other states. Effectively allowing red states to supersede the authority of blue states.
Once the Republicans regain control of the legislative and the executive branches, they will ditch states' rights completely in favor of total control at the federal level. They want whatever gives them the most power at any given time.
I think it's important to add, when it comes to abortion, Republicans consider this a moral issue. And as we learned from the American Civil War, which was fought over the moral issue of slavery, people cannot compromise on moral issues.
Ted Ed video on the Middle Ground Fallacy
Well obviously Republicans are about "power for me, rules for thee". I'm just saying that it's not constitutional, as some people argue.
You are correct, it's not constitutional. The point is that the people arguing that it is constitutional are arguing that in bad faith. Both of these statements must be pointed out.
Not if the person or persons are not in the state when providing assistance and arranging.
If I send plane tickets to a Hoosier to get high in Colorado, that's just not a crime firstly, and even if Indiana thought it was they couldn't investigate me and bring me to trial.
Would have to prove prior knowledge of the abortion plan. Not a lawyer but that's the angle I'd go for.
That was the first thing that came to mind. Another example: many states have laws against gambling. If you lived in one of those states and took a trip to Vegas, could your home state prosecute you for gambling in another state? If your neighbor paid for your Vegas trip, could they be prosecuted for engaging in a criminal conspiracy?
People don't seem to grasp what fascism means. There's no "right" here at this point to even dispute.
There is zero chance this is legal. It 100% violates the commerce clause.
If this were legal, he could prosecute Southwest for flying people to Vegas to gamble. He could prosecute United for flying people to Denver to smoke weed.
Give it time.
Historically the government loses against wealthy companies.
This may be true, but the attempt will probably still be made.
Yeah but a fuckwit AG with an 80IQ is probably not going to be too successful.
DAWG. You can't champion states rights and then punish your constituents for availing themselves of another state's laws. Unless you're some kind of hypocrite...
Interstate commerce is regulated by federal government; they could block this easily but Republicans are filibustering any attempt.
If I were a Democrat and I saw that 6–3 Supreme Court, I would be very wary of attempting anything involving interstate commerce. The Supreme Court clearly has no regard for precedent or consistency anymore, the last thing I want to do is call attention to one of the most potent weapons I have for checking the powers of state governments and the executive branch.
That would be the quickest way to destroy every red state's infrastructure funding and blue states could easily retaliate saying that they don't recognize driver's licenses from red states and won't let in the so-called citizens without a passport.
This is a particularly dumb move given that the states likeliest to produce the greatest number of climate change refugees over the next few decades are Texas and Florida; the Northeastern states would be perfectly delighted to have a legal excuse to shut the door on them.
What makes you think blue states could get away with the same bullshit as red states? The only standards in play are double standards.
You assume that rulings would be consistent. If you read any of the recent decisions you will note plenty of hypocrisy and a decided lack of reasoning consistency in their written opinions. It is almost as if they are trying to justify a predetermined outcome...
So you'll see plenty of rulings in favor of things red states like and against things blue states like.
Interesting that he's calling it a "criminal conspiracy". To this non-lawyer, it looks like an attempt to distract from Trump's high-profile case, and make it seem like anything is a criminal conspiracy now.
Standard GOP MO. As soon as the Dems accuse (credibly) a Republican of wrongdoing, the GOP floods the airwaves with talking-heads using the same language to dilute the meaning for the intellectually-challenged that make up their viewership. They did it for "coup", "insurrection", "quid pro quo", etc. It's all part of DARVO.
DARVO?
DARVO is the acronym for the abuser's tactics:
Cool, TIL, thank you
Deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender. Basically the GOP handbook
Why does this feel all Fugitive Slave Act…?
Because this is basically the same thing as the Fugitive Slave Act. Just swap slaves for pregnant women.
Yes. That was exactly my point.
Republicans want to rule you. They don't have popular ideas and the majority of American citizens don't agree with them.
Stop voting for Republicans, they don't believe in our democracy.
If someone is here, they're smart enough to not vote republican already.
I've seen handmaids tale and I don't like that timeline.
Can we officially define republicans as not the party of small government?
Also not the party of personal responsibility or fiscal responsibility either.
And they're DEFINITELY not the "Party of Lincoln" anyone.
They never were.
Well...they LITERALLY were at one point, but that was a long time ago now.
I think I was half asleep when I wrote that. I more or less meant the Republican party since the Southern Strategy.
Edit: Thinking about it more, I think I skimmed over the "party of Lincoln" part entirely. As for the "party of small government" part, I think that idea started with Reagan, so yeah, I really do think they were never the party of small government.
The Union should have scorched earthed the South when they had the chance.
How about now plz.
General Sherman craves to wander the southern lands once more.
Between this and flat out ignoring the supreme court when they don't like the ruling, Alabama Republicans are really pushing for a constitutional crisis.
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."
We've been in the 'constitutional crisis' stage for awhile now
Whatever happened to these state rights that the GOP keep hounding on about? Almost like they've been making bad faith arguments all this time and just really want to criminalize it throughout the whole country...
The state's rights to own people.
He also has the right to go fuck himself
Notable, since the most-ardent anti-abortionists are always those nobody else would fuck.
"Why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place, huh?" -George Carlin
You know what, if we're just saying anything we want I have the right to kick you in the fucken teeth.
Does that apply to only residents of Alabama? Or fetuses conceived in Alabama? Or pregnant women that stepped foot in Alabama? These laws make no sense.
Yeah but also as humans we have the right to literally do anything we want to people like this guy. ...anything at all.
It's about time Americans start understanding they are humans and can do anything to these psychotic inhuman greedy assholes.
Piece of fucking shit
Know what I would do if I were a billionaire? I'd fund cases fighting these clowns. Hundreds of challenges to these stupid asshats like the "Scopes Monkey Trial" (which was a test case, designed to kill a law, if you didn't know). But then again, no one who believes in actual altruism becomes a billionaire, so this is sort of fantasy.
I know a few trust funders who don't have the billions but since they don't need to make money they've taken up jobs that contribute to the world they want to see. Lawyers and counsellors who work on a sliding scale.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Alabama’s Republican attorney general said in a court filing that he has the right to prosecute people who make travel arrangements for pregnant women to have out-of-state abortions.
The court filing comes in response to lawsuits against Marshall that was filed in July from two women’s health centers and Yellowhammer Fund, an organization which says it provides “financial and practical support for those who are pregnant and require assistance.” The plaintiffs argue that Marshall violated their constitutional rights by publicly stating that organizations which help pregnant women in Alabama get an abortion out of state could be criminally investigated.
Marshall is now asking Judge Myron Thompson to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that helping a woman avoid Alabama’s restrictions by facilitating an abortion elsewhere is a conspiracy.
“The conspiracy is what is being punished, even if the final conduct never occurs,” Marshall’s filing states.
In the wake of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision last summer, several Republican-led states passed strict anti-abortion laws, while several others, including Alabama, that had passed so-called trigger laws anticipating an eventual overturn of Roe v. Wade saw their new restrictions go into effect.
Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, who wrote on X Wednesday, “California will NOT cooperate with any state that attempts to prosecute women or doctors for receiving or providing reproductive care.”
The original article contains 318 words, the summary contains 216 words. Saved 32%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Lynch that fucker.
Sounds like a violation of the Commerce Clause to me!
I wonder if these people are afraid for their own lives when they do with shit like this?
They are in the in-group.The in-group does not attack the in-group (unless its leopard season and there is political capital to be gained).
The entire concept of modern conservatism is to maintain the order of who is in the in-group and who is in the out-group.
And please keep in mind, the only historically-relevant in/out-groups that I can draw a comparison is guillotiners and guillotined.
The guillotined are maintaining infighting to prevent revolt against their pillaging of our lives and well-being of any potential-guillotiners.
Keep the poor angry, hungry, and fighting so they won't turn their ire on the rich.
And Russia has a "right to war."
Reminds me of the USSR where you needed an internal passport to travel inside the country. Same in North Korea now.