When abortion is “sent back to the states ;) ;) :)”

Are you a woman of childbearing age who wants to, say, drive or be a car passenger on a major highway? I would avoid Texas if this is at all possible:

More than a year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, many conservatives have grown frustrated by the number of people able to circumvent antiabortion laws — with some advocates grasping for even stricter measures they hope will fully eradicate abortion nationwide.

That frustration is driving a new strategy in heavily conservative cities and counties across Texas. Designed by the architects of the state’s “heartbeat” ban that took effect months before Roe fell, ordinances like the one proposed in Llano — where some 80 percent of voters in the county backed President Donald Trump in 2020 — make it illegal to transport anyone to get an abortion on roads within the city or county limits. The laws allow any private citizen to sue a person or organization they suspect of violating the ordinance.

Antiabortion advocates behind the measure are targeting regions along interstates and in areas with airports, with the goal of blocking off the main arteries out of Texas and keeping pregnant women hemmed within the confines of their antiabortion state. These provisions have already passed in two counties and two cities, creating legal risk for those traveling on major highways including Interstate 20 and Route 84, which head toward New Mexico, where abortion remains legal and new clinics have opened to accommodate Texas women. Several more jurisdictions are expected to vote on the measure in the coming weeks.

[…]

Conservative lawmakers started exploring ways to block interstate abortion travel long before Roe was overturned. A Missouri legislator introduced a law in early 2022that would have allowed any private citizen to sue anyone who helped a Missouri resident secure an abortion, regardless of where the abortion occurred — an approach later discussed at length by several national antiabortion groups. In April, Idaho became the first state to impose criminal penalties on anyone who helps a minor leave the state for an abortion without parental consent.

Every pundit who was part of the “overruling Roe will be no big deal” industrial complex should be launched into the Rio Grande.

As Jessica Valenti says, there is no such thing as “overreacting” to these measures:

But Republicans aren’t just coming after those who ‘aid and abet’ abortions—they’re laying the groundwork to ban travel for women themselves. While Marshall says in his filing this week, for example, that Alabama doesn’t “forbid” a woman to leave the state to get an abortion—he argues that the state is allowed to “restrict” travel when they have “strong, legitimate interests including preserving unborn life.”

Incredibly, Marshall makes this argument by citing a case involving a Florida sex offender who was required to notify state law enforcement when he changed residences. Because the court found that the burden on his right to travel wasn’t unreasonable given the state’s “strong interest in preventing future sexual offenses,” Marshall suggests that similar restrictions on women’s travel for abortion care aren’t illegal.

I’m going to repeat that: the Attorney General of Alabama isn’t just claiming that it’s illegal to help someone leave the state to get an abortion—which would be bad enough—but that it’s legal to impose restrictions on individual women’s travel, as well.

How many more ways do they need to tell us what they’re planning? It’s not as if they’re hiding it! Republicans aren’t going to ban travel all at once with a single law; they’re going to chip away at that right bit by bit, right in front of us.

It cannot be emphasized enough that in Republican-controlled states, overruling Roe will not return people to the pre-Roe status quo ante. It will be much worse than that.