MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Alabama has a strict abortion ban - no exceptions for rape or incest. As in other places with bans, some patients have been traveling to other states to get an abortion. Well, groups in Alabama that want to help those patients have been afraid of being prosecuted. Now a federal judge has ruled in favor of those groups. Here to explain is Drew Hawkins, public health reporter in the Gulf States Newsroom. Hi, Drew.
DREW HAWKINS, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise. Thanks for having me.
KELLY: Glad to have you with us. Tell me about these groups who have feared prosecution. Who are they?
HAWKINS: Yeah, so you've got these groups in Alabama that provide financial support to patients so they can leave Alabama and travel to another state. And then you've also got doctors or clinical staff, and for them, it's been really unclear what they could say to patients. Could they refer them or connect them to resources in other states? And some were even afraid to suggest to patients that they could go out of state for an abortion, that that was even an option.
This fear, it goes all the way back to 2022, not long after the Supreme Court ruled Roe - on Roe v Wade. That's when Alabama's Attorney General Steve Marshall said he might bring charges against those groups or doctors, that he had a right to prosecute anyone who helped a woman get an abortion in another state.
KELLY: And this new federal court ruling, what did it have to say about that?
HAWKINS: Yeah, so those abortion rights groups, they sued the attorney general. And on Monday, the federal judge in Alabama, Myron Thompson, he sided with them. The judge basically said that they can't be prosecuted because if they were, that would violate their First Amendment speech rights and also the right to travel. So in practical terms, it means these groups can start assisting patients again without fear of criminal prosecution. And, you know, what they do is, these are groups that help pay for things like tickets, gas or food and sometimes the abortion procedure itself. And they can also provide advice or information about where the nearest out-of-state clinics are.
KELLY: A significant win here, then, for reproductive rights supporters in Alabama. How are they responding?
HAWKINS: Yeah. So I talked to Robin Marty. She's the executive director of West Alabama Women's Center in Tuscaloosa. That's one of the groups that filed the suit. And they used to provide abortions, and now they focus on services like contraception and prenatal care. And here's what she said about the ruling.
ROBIN MARTY: I mean, victories are very few and far between in Alabama when it comes to reproductive rights.
HAWKINS: And another organization that joined the lawsuit is the Yellowhammer Fund. They provide financial support to traveling patients, but they stopped doing that in 2022. Jenice Fountain is the executive director of Yellowhammer, and she told me they got right back to work last night after the ruling.
JENICE FOUNTAIN: The decision came at about 5:30. I think we funded an abortion at 5:45 because that's how severe the need is. That's how urgent it is that we get back to the work that we're doing.
KELLY: OK, so a couple of voices there from abortion rights advocates. What about Steve Marshall, the Alabama attorney general you were telling us about?
HAWKINS: Yeah, so in a statement, he said that they're considering their options, but he could appeal the ruling. And law professor Mary Ziegler at UC Davis said she'd be surprised if he doesn't appeal. And she thinks it could go all the way to the Supreme Court.
MARY ZIEGLER: We're just seeing kind of a multiplying of conflicts where we know we have unanswered questions about the meaning of the First Amendment in this context, about the right to travel in this context, about due process in this context, about these sort of clashing state laws and choosing which one applies.
HAWKINS: So Ziegler thinks the U.S. Supreme Court is going to be more involved in abortion cases. There are other battles over things like mailing abortion pills over state lines, for example.
KELLY: That is Drew Hawkins, health reporter in New Orleans with the Gulf States Newsroom. Thank you so much, Drew.
HAWKINS: Thank you, Mary Louise.
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