Idaho Governor Brad Little on Wednesday signed a new bill banning travel to help a minor seek an abortion. The new “abortion trafficking” bill would imprison people for 2 to 5 years if they help a minor obtain an abortion across state lines without parental consent.
The law would restrict any kind of interstate travel involving an abortion without parental permission. And while the notion of involving a parent in a child’s decision might seem reasonable, the reality is that some parents would rather their child die, be abused, or live forever in poverty than undergo an abortion.
The broad language in the law could also restrict travel in unanticipated ways. For example, if an aunt or a cousin takes a teenager on a trip, and during that trip she has a miscarriage, they could be prosecuted for getting her appropriate medical care. A teenager who travels with a friend on a vacation, and who then gets an abortion in another state—even if this was not the explicit purpose of the trip—would also run afoul of the law.
It’s the next step in the far right’s attempt to force pregnant people to give birth at all costs—even if it kills them. Abortion restrictions restrict care for people with wanted pregnancies, too. Study after study has shown the harms of these restrictions, ranging from an increase in suicide to a decrease in women’s wages.
“In the Dobbs decision, Justice Kavanaugh mused that, in his view, a state cannot bar a resident from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion because of the ‘constitutional right to interstate travel,’” said Jeffrey Filipovits of Spears & Filipovits, LLC, a civil rights attorney in Georgia.
Even before the death of Roe v. Wade, though, Republican legislators were working overtime to restrict the right to travel for abortion. It’s an unconstitutional maneuver, but that’s never stopped them before.
“The extent of the right to travel is far from a settled question. And even if it was settled, the lesson of the Dobbs decision is that the Supreme Court will do what it wants. It is not constrained by its own precedent and its decisions are dictated by ideology. There is no reason to believe that a majority of the Supreme Court will recognize the right to travel to another state to obtain an abortion,” Filipovits said.
As I’ve written previously, any legislation that targets pregnant people doesn’t just affect pregnant people. It affects anyone who gets a period, whether they’re pregnant or not, trying to become pregnant or not, pro-choice or not. Banning abortion criminalizes having a female body, and banning abortion-related travel criminalizes travel for women.
The reason for this is pretty simple: There is nothing that distinguishes an abortion from a miscarriage after the fact. Suddenly every pregnancy loss becomes suspect, potentially subjecting women and their families to investigation. And because an early miscarriage is indistinguishable from a period, periods, too, could potentially be probable cause for an investigation.
They’re not going to stop with minors, either. Once they ban abortion travel in as many states as they can, any person who gets a period will have to worry that they can’t legally travel out of state. And women who need life-saving miscarriage care, or abortions to cure life-threatening pregnancy complications, will suddenly have to choose between death and prosecution.
“If the question is whether the United States is at risk of prohibiting all abortions and thereby forcing women into involuntary servitude, the answer is yes. The most charitable view of the Supreme Court's recent jurisprudence is that it will no longer serve as a buffer against governmental oppression. It will not protect us against totalitarianism. That means that whoever controls the legislatures will control the future,” Filipovits added.
They don’t just want force women into unwanted pregnancies. They want to physically trap us, too.