When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the issue of abortion travel bans was addressed, and conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh was clear: they are unconstitutional.
That didn't stop the locals. Travel bans will appear in Texas less than a year later. Idaho has since passed a law and Oklahoma and Mississippi are debating whether to follow suit. Tennessee officials not only want to make taking a minor for an abortion a felony if a parent did not consent, but they also want to make sharing information about other states' abortion laws illegal.
opinion columnist
LZ Granderson
LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports, and living life in America.
It's clear that Republicans feel comfortable ignoring Kavanaugh's opinion on the constitutionality of the issue, which is why California Governor Gavin Newsom is taking up the issue with voters in those conservative states.
This week the announced an advertising campaign aimed at red states where lawmakers are debating whether to make it a crime to travel for reproductive care out of state. Normally I don't like it when Newsom sticks his nose into other states' affairs (you know, given all of California's problems), but he's right to use his platform to raise the alarm on this issue. (He is not using California taxpayers' money; the ads are funded by a political action committee.)
As Kavanaugh noted, interstate travel is a constitutional right. I think, as many Supreme Court justices have in the past, that privacy is too. Newsom may occasionally criticize his conservative counterparts for political points, but this ad campaign is not simply partisan. Someone has to defend the rights of Americans. Ask yourself: How much more government surveillance do we as a society want? Enforcing travel bans like the one Tennessee is proposing would require authorities to track things like “where are you going?” and for how long?”
Our privacy has been losing ground since the passage of the Patriot Act. Back then, a fearful nation was galvanized by the horror of 9/11. Now it seems as if we are mired in a devastating horror of our own making. It was bad enough that blind partisanship took over decisions about reproductive care; Now states are looking to criminalize interstate travel.
We're already past the theatrics of Newsom's debate with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. This time, the focus is not on a governor's ego but on our entire right to privacy and interstate travel.
We have enough Americans trapped in our broken justice system.
Consider this: nearly 250 people have been acquitted of wrongful convictions thanks to the work of the innocence project, a nonprofit that uses DNA to overturn verdicts. That's more than 3,600 collective years behind bars because our justice system got it terribly wrong. Now think about the people the organization has failed to help. Think about overworked public defenders doing the best they can. Think about human error.
This is the legal system we want to send rape and incest victims who might be or have been pregnant, who might have crossed state lines, who are suspected of receiving medical care while out of state or even expecting to receive care?
Even for a nation that has become accustomed to 20 years of unconstitutional invasions of privacy since 9/11, these latest laws seem like a giant leap into a dystopian hellscape.
Are we now going to pretend that the Patriot Act established a new normal and that these state laws banning travel for health care reasons are a step beyond that? Did many Americans tolerate the Patriot Act because it took away our freedoms in the name of a religious war? Will many allow more privacy to be taken away from us in this new religious war?
This has always been the legal battle for reproductive rights. A battle of religions. There is a version of the faith that does not believe that a woman should have full control over her body. That perverse belief system has inspired countless laws across the country for years, and more and more of them have come into effect since Roe v. Wade. And now the men who dominate many state legislatures are not satisfied with controlling what women can do within state lines; They are trying to control whether women can cross state lines to receive care.
So sure, you can roll your eyes or ignore the politician Newsom.
But don't ignore his message on this topic.
Bills disguised as “parental rights” are Trojan horses. Initially, conservatives wanted to ban critical race theory in elementary school. Party leaders never identified a primary school that actually taught CRT, but that created fear and that fear has led to book bans. Similarly, the avalanche of bills banning transgender athletes didn't come from a wave of examples: just fear. And that fear led to a proposal in Florida that would require young women to answer questions like “how old were you when you got your first period?” before playing sports.
That's what fear-based legislation does to a society. It causes a frenzy. This is how we ended up overly criminalized in the first place. And now, an overly policed and incarcerated society has officials in red states thinking about criminalizing interstate travel.
So Newsom may not be the voice Republicans want to hear on this issue, but that doesn't mean what he says is wrong.
