Bill Montana could criminalize the State crossing lines for an abortion

A new draft law in Montana “establishing the criminal offense of abortion traffic” could incriminate pregnant women crossing the state lines to abort. Under Bill House 609From the state representative Kerri Seekins-Crowe (R-Bilings), anyone convicted of “abortion traffic” would face up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $ 1,000 or both.

The draft law defines abortion traffic as an intentionally or knowledgeable transport “an unborn child who is currently located in this state, either in a location in this state, or in a location outside this state, with the intention to get an abortion that is illegal in this state. –

Helping or assisting someone else in such transport would also make one guilty of abortion traffic.

Criminalizing to drive someone else in Montana to do something that is legal In another state it is itself ridiculous. But the language of this draft law would clearly incriminate some pregnant women who are transported outside the state.

But wait … isn’t the legal abortion in Montana?

For a constitutional modification voters passed in 2024Montana allows abortion to fetal viability and offers an exception from this limit if the life or mother’s health is in danger. This fact can take a break to people who think it is an acceptable limit – after all, it is just the incrimination of people who get some kind of bad abortions, right?

Look, I don’t like the idea of ​​long-term abortions. But let’s take a step back here for a moment.

First of all, there is what many would consider justifiable reasons to abortion after about 24 weeks, including fatal fetal disorders that are not discovered until later. “If it were a draft law at the time, I would not be just a grieving mother, I would be a kind,” Anne Angus SAPS Jessica Valenti from Abortion, every day:

The 35 -year -old left Montana for an abortion in 2022, after her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition. She was pregnant with 24 weeks – who passed the legal window of abortion at that time. According to HB 609, she could have faced years of imprisonment. “All because he fled the state to give my son the compassion and dignity he deserves,” she says.

Moreover, you do not have to cheer you from unconstitutional measures, which limit travel, like this one because it could stop some abortions that do not meet your moral standards. There are other solutions-such as boosting for changes to laws in the states without limits-which could address abortion-after-life problems without involving other rights.

It is also possible that the voters in Montana will remain on a recent constitutional change, and the state will prohibit abortion much earlier in pregnancy or will prohibit it entirely. In this case, a woman leaving the state for an abortion in the first trimester could still be found guilty of abortion traffic.

Perhaps most importantly, we should keep in mind that this is unlikely to stop with Montana. In fact, Montana may be seen by some as the perfect test for this kind of things precisely because it currently allows abortions until viability.

“Starting in a state in which abortion is legal until” viability “, it gives Republicans a certain amount of PR. . “It is not accidental that HB 609 later targets patients with abortion … just as it is not a coincidence that previous” traffic “laws have been focused on adolescents.”

This is just speculation, of course. But I would not surprise me if supporters of abortion traffic laws, such as HB 609 in Montana, could count on people to leave this slip, because they would only involve post-viability abortions (for now). Meanwhile, they end up testing messaging and legal arguments before moving on to a state where abortion is banned sooner or entirely.

The policy of “traffic”

For now, HB 609 was sent to the Judicial Committee of the Chamber of Montana and had an initial hearing this morning.

Whatever happens to this draft law, it will certainly not be the last that we will hear about abortion traffic, a Republican term have begun to use and favor more often in recent years.

It is a handy framing trick. To call some “abortion traffic” sounds much worse than “leaving the state for an abortion.” The latter involves the right of Americans to freedom of movement and could provide some moderate people. But traffic Means to cope with or traded with something illegal and is used in other criminal status (drug trafficking, sex trafficking, work). For those who do not pay special attention, abortion traffic It may seem to mean something worse than her. And even for those who know the definition, the expectations of changing and crime can be unconsciously, even when used to refer to someone who leaves the state to obtain a legal abortion elsewhere.

This is a well -worn strategy. As Matisse mistress underlined On X, “they first tested the” self-traction fees “for sex workers.” Sex workers sometimes have were accused of “sex traffic” themselves. In addition, sexual work customers or potential customers are sometimes described as sex traffickers and accused of sex traffic. Because sex traffic may also refer to terrible crimes such as enforcement Someone else to sell sex, the term is a confused mess that allows authorities to invoke bad criminals and heroic salvations when what they do is arrest people because it has tried to have consensual sex.

Some Republicans seem intended to draw a trick similar to abortion traffic.

The term is defined differently in the different states that have taken into account the legislation on abortion traffic. In Idaho and Tennessee, the laws on abortion traffic Prohibition helps a minor to achieve an abortion outside the state.

Regardless of a precise definition, the invocation of traffic suggests a kind of constraint a girl or a woman who was transported on state lines for an abortion against her will-the involvement of an abortion on the black market, when reality is usually people who Take advantage of the freedom of freedom of freedom of freedom and federalism to have abortions.

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