Center Continues Fight Against Anti-Abortion Extremists

Although it’s legal to travel out of state to obtain abortion care, anti-abortion extremists are doing what they can to block such travel using intimidating tactics.

A Center for Reproductive Rights client allegedly fled Texas—where abortion is banned—for abortion care in another state. Now she and her family are being threatened with legal action by her ex-boyfriend.

Anti-abortion extremist Jonathan Mitchell—one of the lawyers who helped write Texas’s vigilante abortion ban, S.B. 8—is representing the ex-boyfriend.

Such legal action against the Center’s client is only meant to intimidate her and countless others in abortion ban states. It is not a crime to leave the state to have an abortion, and it is not a crime to help someone leave the state for abortion care. 

“Anti-abortion lawmakers often say they would never punish the woman, but that’s simply not true,” said Molly Duane, senior staff attorney at the Center, in a May 3 Jezebel article, “Don’t Believe Fearmongering Lawsuits: You Can Leave Your State for an Abortion.” “Even if abortion bans don’t technically criminalize the abortion seeker, anti-abortion extremists use other laws all the time to target them.”

“Across the country, we are seeing attempts to trap people in states where abortion is criminalized,” said Nancy Northup, President and CEO of the Center, in a statement. “The anti-abortion movement wants to deny abortion access nationwide, and this is a terrifying step in that direction.” 

Duane told Jezebel that the legal action threatened against the Center’s client mirrors the actions of abusive partners who try to entrap their victims: “It’s all about fear, chaos, cruelty in the extreme.”

“Jonathan Mitchell has orchestrated this case to instill fear in every Texan and make them believe they can’t leave their state for abortion care,” said Northup. “To be clear, every person has a constitutional right to travel across state lines to get abortion care in states where it is legal.”

Read the article here:

>> “Don’t Believe Fearmongering Lawsuits: You Can Leave Your State for an Abortion,” Jezebel, 05.03.24