Judge blocks ‘abortion trafficking’ law, slams Tennessee legislature for having ‘no legitimate interest’ in medical care outside state borders

Main: FILE - Rep. Aftyn Behn, D-Nashville, talks on a bill brought to the House floor April 15, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. Behn and Rachel Welty, a reproductive rights activist, filed a lawsuit Monday, June 24, 2024, challenging a state statute banning adults from helping minors get an abortion without parental permission (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski, File). Inset: FILE - An abortion-rights demonstrator holds a sign during a rally, May 14, 2022, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Rep. Aftyn Behn and Nashville attorney Rachel Welty filed a lawsuit Monday, June 24, 2024, challenging a state statute banning adults from helping minors get an abortion without parental permission (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File).

Main: FILE – Rep. Aftyn Behn, D-Nashville, talks on a bill brought to the House floor April 15, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski, File). Inset: FILE – An abortion-rights demonstrator holds a sign during a rally, May 14, 2022, in Chattanooga, Tenn. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File).

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked Tennessee’s so-called “abortion trafficking law,” which bans adults from helping minors get an abortion without parental permission.

Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-15-220 was passed by the Tennessee General Assembly on April 24 and signed by Gov. Bill Lee on May 28. It went into effect on July 1. It imposes both civil and criminal liability, and does not contain exceptions for cases in which a minor may have been raped by a parent or guardian.

Tennessee’s statute prohibits “intentionally recruit[ing], harbor[ing], or transport[ing] a pregnant unemancipated minor within this state” for the purpose of concealing an illegal abortion from parents or guardians “regardless of where the abortion is to be procured,” or obtaining an abortion-inducing drug for a pregnant minor “regardless of where the abortion-inducing drug is obtained.”

The Tennessee law mimicked a similar first-of-its-kind statute enacted in Idaho last year. Like Tennessee’s law, Idaho’s statute was also temporarily blocked by a federal judge as an unconstitutional restriction on free speech and as unconstitutionally vague.

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