Alabama Will Charge People With Criminal Conspiracy For Helping Women Travel For Abortions

The Republican Attorney General of Alabama, Steve Marshall, says that his office will likely seek charges of criminal conspiracy against anyone that helps a woman flee the oppression in Alabama in order to obtain an abortion. This threat is basically harmless, as the Commerce Clause would prevent any prosecutions for this matter, but the threat alone is enough to make people think twice about helping women, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

The Republican Attorney General of the State of Alabama, a man by the name of Steve Marshall, filed a motion in court this week letting it be known that anyone anywhere in this country, if you so much as help a woman leave the state of Alabama for the purpose of getting an abortion, you will be criminally prosecuted for conspiracy. Steve Marshall, Republican Attorney General of Alabama says, I'm going to bring criminal conspiracy charges against anyone that helps a woman leave this state to get an abortion. So if you're giving money to a fund that somebody has to be able to pay to leave the state to go get an abortion, criminal conspiracy charges from the state of Alabama, if you offer to give a woman a ride out of the state of Alabama to go have the procedure done, criminal conspiracy charges, and for the record, there are actually several groups that do that for women. They raise money so they can get out of their oppressive states to go have the procedure done. They offer rides to these women to help them.

And Alabama says, if you do that, you are now a criminal. And it gets even worse because Mr. Marshall just isn't just saying, like, if you take a woman to go have an abortion, if you do it, like if you drive her outta the state, but then she decides not to go through with it, we're still gonna hit you with criminal conspiracy charges. So it doesn't matter if the procedure is done or not, you take a pregnant woman outta the state of Alabama, they're gonna hit you with criminal conspiracy charges. Th th this, this is, I mean, I know the comparison to Handmaid's Tales been made a lot, but my God, that's what this is. And here's the worst part. What this attorney general is saying in Alabama is a hundred percent illegal. I mean, that is a clear violation of the interstate commerce clause.

You cannot prevent a human being from leaving your state to go have a medical procedure done. That's like if I had a dentist here in Florida that was like, no, man, I'm not gonna pull that tooth for you. Sorry. We're just gonna have to let that tooth rot in your head and cause all kinds of bacterial infections. And I say, okay, well, I'm gonna drive to a New York dentist and have it done, and Florida can't punish me for that. I'm allowed to travel to any state. I want to have a medical procedure done. The state of Florida where I live has no control over that. Just like the state of Alabama has no control. If a woman leaves the state to go have a medical procedure done, again, the Commerce Clause is very, very clear about that. And this ag knows that, by the way. But you know, who doesn't know that? Most of the people that are out there trying to help these women.

So the threat of being thrown in jail and hit with criminal conspiracy charges is enough to make some people say, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I can't do it then. And that's the point. It's not because this man actually thinks he'll be able to prosecute these people, but if he can make the people think that he can prosecute them, then they won't do it. That's the real tragedy here. I mean, on top of all of the other tragedies with this, he knows just the threat of criminal charges, even though they won't stick, that's enough to keep women in the state of Alabama suffering. And that's why he's doing it.