Idaho once who knew how to avoid these situations.
Well hello fascism! I wonder how many state police will pull people over and ask for their papers.
Menzo
1909
Only the ones who don’t quite fit in.
Among other things, goodbye carpools for kids. Want to take the risk that one of the parents in your weekly school / sports team carpool will decide to sue you under this statute? Not me, man.
Sharpe
1911
I would just like to point out that this doesn’t pass a moment’s consideration. How can you cross a state line if you cannot get to the state line? This law impairs the right to interstate travel, without question. The good news is, with even a minimally reasonable court, this law will not survive legal challenge. Even our terrible SCOTUS is unlikely to uphold this. I mean it’s like the drafters of the bill can’t do basic logic.
JoshL
1912
I eagerly await Idaho lawmakers explaining that this law also forbids people from moving out of state just in case they might want access to an abortion later, for themselves or their children. Or future children!
Thankfully enforcing such laws would be real hard. Easy to get out of a state unless it’s Rhode Island or Hawaii.
As far as I understand it, this kind of law isn’t meant to be enforced per se. It’s a law meant to scare people with punitive consequences.
For example, a neighbor or “family friend” suspects a teen went out of state to get an abortion. That person can tip off the cops who will then investigate and look for evidence of the out-of-state abortion in the accused’s social media posts, phone records, texts, or with other people’s testimony. You punish the heck out of them and the goal is to get the next pregnant teen girl to not seek an abortion.
Yeah, and you add the threat of private civil suits to the mix, which has the effect of cutting the teenage girl off from advice and consultation on the matter.
Sure, but in the case of this law, it will probably go to the supreme court as unconstitutional as it challenges the right to interstate travel. It is section 1 of 14th amendment, and it has been upheld multiple times for cases not related to abortion. It is extremely clear that it is unconstitutional for any state to pass a law restricting a U.S. citizens free travel to another state. This is a freedom that even the conservative supreme court justices will agree with.
This does not make it any less unconstitutional, because it effectively is the same as limiting the trip altogether, as it still limits interstate travel, because if you can’t leave your state for fear of prosecution, you are limiting interstate travel.
This is the legal equivalent of arguing that you aren’t a murderer because you pushed a guy off a building, because the ground is what killed him, not you.
It is braindead politicking that got rubberstamped by an unchallenged majority, cases like this are why the supreme court exists, to shut down idiotic legalease like that.
I think I agree, but I’m not as certain that 5 justices will agree. And in any event, that scenario will take some time to play out, all the while the law is having the intended effect.
ShivaX
1918
It also gives cops free reign to do whatever whenever.
“Why did you randomly stop this person for no reason?”
“Oh, we thought they were leaving the state for an abortion, we got a tip.”
Basically if you know someone you don’t like that has a daughter, you can have the cops harass them every time their kid leaves the house as long as the cops are willing to play along. And spoiler: the cops will probably play along or just do it on their own.
Very true, unfortunately the women and children and families in Idaho will have to suffer while this plays out.
I am a bit more optimistic around the supreme court ruling on this, partially because their ruling around the removal of roe v wade was down to the need for legislation to codify it, and that the court should not get involved in matters that the legislature should handle, and that there are states that have their own laws on this. Having laws in states that prohibit other state’s freedoms (like travel to them) will probably be a no-no. You are allowed to control abortion in your own state, not others, and the Idaho law is trying to control out of state abortions.
KWhit
1920
I’m not sure that a majority of this court gives a flying fuck about that.
I think that they do, to a fault. The conservative wing of the Supreme court has been very literalist in the interpretation of the constitution, and the Idaho law is literally unconstitutional.
JoshL
1922
Yeah, if they can’t find a literal interpretation of the constitution to come to the conclusion they want, they just refuse to hear the case.
Objection! This is certainly what they claim to be doing, but it is not in practice what they actually do.
One federal judge orders FDA to de-approve mifepristone, another federal judge orders FDA to keep mifepristone available. Can’t the FDA just pick the ruling they prefer?
