A federal judge in Alabama soon will decide whether the state can prosecute healthcare providers and advocates who assist pregnant women in getting an abortion elsewhere.
Soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022 and returned the abortion issue to the states, Alabama Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said groups helping to fund out-of-state abortions could face felony charges.
Abortion is almost entirely illegal in Alabama, where there are no exceptions for rape or incest. There is an exception for serious health risks to the patient.
Providers and advocates took Marshall to court with lawsuits aiming to block him from following through on the threat of prosecution.
"No Alabama law authorizes such prosecutions. Nor could it. That would be a blatant extraterritorial overreach of state power," the providers' lawsuit states, NBC News reported.
Marshall's office then asked the court to dismiss a now consolidated case.
"An elective abortion performed in Alabama would be a criminal offense; thus, a conspiracy formed in the State to have that same act performed outside the State is illegal," the AG's filing said.
The attorney general also urged the court to find that the plaintiffs don't have standing to sue on behalf of their patients.
"Plaintiffs' evidence shows only arms-length relationships with hypothetical clients … and thus does not establish a close relationship indicating that plaintiffs would be 'as effective a proponent' as the women themselves," Marshall argued, The Hill reported.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama, who will rule on the case, in May declined the state's request to dismiss the case.
"Alabama can no more restrict people from going to, say, California to engage in what is lawful there than California can restrict people from coming to Alabama to do what is lawful here," Thompson wrote.
The plaintiffs in the case say they are worried about the broader implications if Alabama were to prevail in the case.
"Abortion is already illegal in Alabama. This is a step beyond that, isolating a pregnant person from the people who they might want to talk to about their options, that they might want to get help from. And that isolation is incredibly dangerous," said Jamila Johnson, who's representing the pro-abortion Yellowhammer Fund, The Hill reported.
Advocates say that before Roe was overturned, abortion access in Alabama still was restricted, with one in five people forced to travel out of state.
With the entire Southeast now having banned or restricted abortion, advocates say people must travel hundreds of miles to receive an abortion.