Alabama Abortion Helpers Fend Off State Action to Ban Travel

Alabama’s attorney general can’t move forward with his threat to prosecute reproductive rights groups that provide money and logistical help for pregnant people to travel out of state for lawful abortions, a federal trial court said.

A plan by Steve Marshall (R) to prosecute abortion “helpers,” including the Yeollowhammer Fund and West Alabama Women’s Center, under the state’s criminal conspiracy laws violates the groups’ and patients’ constitutional rights to travel and free speech, Judge Myron H. Thompson of the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama said Monday.

Thompson granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs on the right ...