Actually, it doesn't do that.NEW
— Kate Smith (@byKateSmith) March 8, 2022
A new Missouri bill would prohibit women leaving the state to get an abortion.
If this style of legislation is somehow found legal, it would have a huge impact in a post-Roe v Wade world. https://t.co/kpPiOzVj3J
"An unusual new provision, introduced by state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R), would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion out of state, using the novel legal strategy behind the restrictive law in Texas that since September has banned abortions in that state after six weeks of pregnancy," reports the Post. "Coleman has attached the measure as an amendment to several abortion-related bills that have made it through committee and are waiting to be heard on the floor of the House of Representatives."
"Helps" is a curious term, there. If I drive my wife from St. Louis to Chicago (or just southern Illinois to a clinic), it that "help"? What if I just hand her the car keys? Or don't bodily block her from leaving the house? No, it’s not limited to residents of Missouri. Or maybe it is; either way, it’s stupid.
The Texas law at least allows doctors and nurses and clinics in Texas to be sued. This proposal just doesn't make any sense. Are residents of Missouri going to sue doctors in Illinois, or New York state? I see more than a few jurisdictional issues there, and probably removal of state claims to federal court on diversity of jurisdiction grounds. I wouldn't want to be the Missouri lawyer arguing there was a nexus between my client and a doctor in New York (just as an example; it's a far piece from MO to NY), and that nexus was the patient who had the abortion, a person my client has no connection to other than being another resident of MO. (Generally you can't bring the defendant into court in your state unless that defendant is doing business in your state (like, say, Amazon) or has some sort of connection to your state. The defendant performing a legal medical service in NY on a resident of MO who is not you (the plaintiff), is not grounds for such a connection or establishment of jurisdiction.)
Basically, sure, you can try to sue somebody under this proposed statute; but I don't see it working out too well. Like I say, do you sue the spouse/boyfriend who gave her directions? Or who didn’t lock them in the house? For wholly out of state help, the trouble you'd have to go through to get them into court and then keep them there, would make it not worth the trouble. Not to mention the Civil Rights Act implications.
I predict a close race between states outlawing abortion, and states passing batshit crazy laws. Future is bright for trial lawyers. For the rest of us? 💩
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