Anna Claire Vollers | (TNS) Stateline.org
Helping a pregnant minor travel to get a legal abortion without parental consent is now a crime in at least two Republican-led states, prompting legal action by abortion-rights advocates and copycat legislation from conservative lawmakers in a handful of other states.
Last year, Idaho became the first state to outlaw “abortion trafficking,” which it defined as “recruiting, harboring or transporting” a pregnant minor to get an abortion or abortion medication without parental permission. In May, Tennessee enacted a similar law. And Republican lawmakers in Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma introduced abortion trafficking bills during their most recent legislative sessions, although those bills failed to advance before the sessions ended.
Those five states are among the 14 that enacted strict abortion bans following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision, which dismantled the federal right to abortion. Now, conservative state lawmakers are pushing additional measures to try to restrict their residents from getting them in states where it remains legal.
“A lot of folks thought Dobbs was the floor and it’s really not,” said Tennessee state Rep. Aftyn Behn, a Nashville Democrat who’s challenging Tennessee’s trafficking law in court. “[Anti-abortion lawmakers] are coming for state travel and the ability to even talk about abortion.”
Abortion-rights advocates have filed lawsuits in Alabama, Idaho and Tennessee, arguing the laws are vague and violate constitutional rights to free speech and travel between states. A federal judge has temporarily blocked Idaho’s law from being enforced while the case is ongoing.
Proponents of the laws argue they’re needed to protect parental rights and to prevent other adults from persuading adolescents to get abortions.
“This is a parental rights piece of legislation,” Idaho Republican state Rep. Barbara Ehardt told Stateline. “We can’t…
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