Last Friday, US District Court Judge Aleta Trauger temporarily blocked part of a Tennessee law that makes it a Class C felony for an adult to “recruit, harbor or transport” a minor to get an abortion — which they call “abortion trafficking” (huge eyeroll). Sadly, it’s not the part of the law that bars pregnant teens who have parents who would force them to become teen moms against their will from seeking help from a trusted adult.
Following a federal lawsuit filed by state Rep. Aftyn Behn, D-Nashville, and Nashville attorney Rachel Welty, Judge Trauger blocked enforcement of the part of the law criminalizing “recruitment,” on the grounds that it could be (read: definitely is) a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech and it’s not entirely clear what the hell is meant by “recruit” in this context.
Does it mean that we cannot set up shop next to military recruiters at high schools and hand out brochures encouraging teens to get knocked up just so they can have an abortion? Does it mean that we cannot offer rewards for abortions or give out buy ten abortions and get one free punch cards? Or something else that does not actually happen in real life? No one seems to want to say!
“No one associated with [the law] seems to have a particularly clear picture of what the provision is supposed to prohibit — not the prosecutors who will be called on to enforce it; not the state attorneys called on to defend the statute in court; and, it seems, not even the individuals who drafted the provision itself,” Trauger wrote in the ruling.
This is true, but it’s also in there for a reason. In order to combat the idea that they are anti-women, anti-abortion-rights creeps, anti-abortion activists have long tried to perpetuate the idea that we are all out here peer pressuring and encouraging women to have abortions instead of giving birth. They have to pretend that we don’t just want people to be able to make their own choices about their own reproductive lives themselves, but that we actively prefer they have abortions, partly because we just really enjoy killing fetuses. They also need to let themselves believe that the only reason anyone disagrees with them is because they have been brainwashed not to.
They can’t expound further than “recruit” when it comes to a law though, because it’s obviously a thing that only exists inside their fevered imaginations. It is, however, made clear in the defense of the law made on social media by Rep. Jason Zachary, R-Knoxville, who introduced the bill this past spring.
"Abortion is a settled issue in Tennessee," Zachary wrote on Xitter. "We have prohibited the elective killing of a baby in the womb. We do have an exception for the life of the mother. The law in question is about parental rights, period. The language prohibits an adult who is not the parent/guardian of a minor from facilitating an abortion for that minor without the parent’s consent. This is common sense. Unfortunately, the radical left’s obsession with aborting babies led to this legal challenge. I’m confident our AG will successfully defend the law, securing parents rights to make decisions for their child."
See how he cites “the radical left’s obsession with aborting babies,” as if that is the primary goal and not “not forcing people to give birth against their will”?
Trauger, however, was not buying it.
“The freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment is not simply a special protection that the Constitution grants to a few, high-profile speakers so that those speakers can hear themselves talk; it is a protection available to everyone, for the interconnected benefit of everyone, because messages do not gain their fullest power by being uttered, but by being spread,” Trauger wrote. “Welty and Behn do not just have a right to speak their message; they have a right to live in a state where that message can be repeated by all who find it valuable to all who wish to hear it. Otherwise, there would be no actual freedom of speech — just freedom of a few speakers to address a silenced populace.”
The real goal here, clearly, is to allow the state to punish people explicitly for publicly advocating for abortion rights or discussing what options exist outside state lines for those who may need to get one. They long to be able to frame that as “recruiting” and make it illegal, so that it will stop.
However, if they get any other judge that values people’s First Amendment rights over Rep. Zachary’s right to never have his ideas challenged, they probably will not get this one through. Too bad the same can’t be said for the whole damn law.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
I have provided transportation to a young Idaho woman who needed a specific variety of women's reproductive healthcare she could not access in her own state. She was transported from her Idaho panhandle home to Spokane where she received the medical care she NEEDED, and after a suitable recovery period she enjoyed a peaceful ride home with a much lighter heart and renewed hope.
Now which one of these malevolent misogynist moral arbiters is going to be banging on my front door with an arrest warrant?
Anyone else think this part of the decision needs to be heard and read all over the world?
“The freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment is not simply a special protection that the Constitution grants to a few, high-profile speakers so that those speakers can hear themselves talk; it is a protection available to everyone, for the interconnected benefit of everyone, because messages do not gain their fullest power by being uttered, but by being spread,” Trauger wrote. “Welty and Behn do not just have a right to speak their message; they have a right to live in a state where that message can be repeated by all who find it valuable to all who wish to hear it. Otherwise, there would be no actual freedom of speech — just freedom of a few speakers to address a silenced populace.”