Trump cuts Planned Parenthood funds while Alabama abortion doctors notch win
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Protestors rally against Alabama's abortion ban in May 2019 in Montgomery, Alabama. Photo: Julie Bennett/Getty Images
Alabama cannot prosecute doctors and reproductive rights groups that help patients travel out of state for abortions, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Why it matters: Alabama has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, with Monday's ruling upending threats by the state's attorney general to crack down on Alabamans' ability to travel elsewhere for the procedure.
- The ruling came the same day Planned Parenthood announced the Trump administration was withholding funds for nine of its affiliates.
The big picture: Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) suggested in 2022 that doctors who recommended abortion care out of state could be charged with criminal conspiracy, prompting a slew of legal challenges, per the New York Times.
- U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson wrote in his ruling Monday that Marshall's threats violated Alabamans' First Amendment and interstate travel rights.
- "It is one thing for Alabama to outlaw by statute what happens in its own backyard. It is another thing for the State to enforce its values and laws ... outside its boundaries," Thompson wrote.
What they're saying: The ruling will set a good precedent and serve as a warning to anti-abortion politicians in other states who wish to pursue similar aims, Meagan Burrows, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a press release.
- "Such attacks on free speech and the fundamental right to travel fly in the face of the Constitution and cannot stand," she noted.
State of play: While Thompson's ruling notched a legal victory for reproductive rights proponents, it came against the backdrop of other setbacks.
- Planned Parenthood announced Monday that nine of its affiliates had received notices from the Trump administration about plans to withhold their Title X family planning funds starting Tuesday.
- "We know what happens when health care providers cannot use Title X funding: People across the country suffer, cancers go undetected, access to birth control is severely reduced, and the nation's STI crisis worsens," Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in the press release.
The White House did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment regarding either the Alabama ruling of the Title X funding withdrawal.
Go deeper: Patient requests for long-term birth control on rise after Trump reelection
Editor's note: This story has been updated with a statement from attorney Megan Burrows.
