Key court hearing as Alabama threatens prosecutions over abortion support
Source: The Guardian
Wed 5 Mar 2025 06.00 EST
Last modified on Wed 5 Mar 2025 06.02 EST
A bellwether test of states’ ability to prosecute people over abortions that take place across state lines will hold a critical hearing on Wednesday, when Alabama abortion rights supporters will square off against the state attorney general over his threats to prosecute groups that help women travel for the procedure.
In the months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, clearing the way for Alabama to ban virtually all abortions, Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall repeatedly suggested that abortion rights activists who help people go out of state for abortions could be charged as participants in an illegal conspiracy.
The Yellowhammer Fund, an abortion fund that helped people pay for the procedure, and the West Alabama Women’s Center, a former abortion clinic that pivoted to providing services like miscarriage management, joined with other abortion rights advocates to sue Marshall over his comments. Now, experts worry that a victory for Alabama could serve as a green light to other states’ efforts to attack people who want to end their pregnancies but live in states that ban abortion.
“If you go to Las Vegas to gamble, but your state doesn’t permit it, you don’t expect for your AG to suggest that anybody who helped you gamble in another state is going to be prosecuted, fined, and jailed,” said Rachel Rebouché, an expert in reproductive health law and the dean of Temple University’s law school. “It’s a real encroachment on what we take for granted about how states treat each other – but also within the state, that the state will turn its law enforcement power against somebody who has done something that is not illegal.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/05/alabama-court-hearing-abortion
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