Alabama’s Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall argued in a court document that his office has the authority to prosecute people who help patients travel out of state to get an abortion, claiming such act constitute a criminal conspiracy to violate Alabama law, CNN reports.
According to the filing, Marshall claims that the conspiracy to obtain an abortion out of state violates state law. Similar laws in Texas, Idaho and other states face a plethora of legal challenges on a variety of grounds, from the First Amendment to the Commerce Clause. “The conspiracy is what is being punished, even if the final conduct never occurs,” Marshall claimed in his court filing. “That conduct is Alabama-based and is within Alabama’s power to prohibit.”
Marshall has yet to give the legal rationale that someone can violate Alabama state law when they are physically located in another state, undertaking an activity that is legal in that state, something that the Constitution and US Supreme Court has ruled consistently prevents prosecution. He also did not address how he would handle people who travel out of state to do things that are shunned in Alabama, such using cannabis, buying alcohol on Sunday, or marrying outside the family.