It's Against The Law, It Was Against The Law, What Momma Saw*

They are trying but there is a little like the Constitution that stands in their way… but the Republicans never let it bothered them.

Furthering Attacks on Trans Kids and Abortion Rights, GOP Targets Those Who Leave State for Care
New proposals would criminalize parents of transgender youths in Idaho who leave the state for gender-affirming care and women in Missouri who travel to obtain abortions.
Common Dreams
By Julia Conley
March 9, 2022


Republican-led state legislatures are intensifying attacks on transgender and reproductive rights by trying to bar people from leaving their home states to receive gender-affirming healthcare and abortion care, as lawmakers in Idaho and Missouri have proposed in recent days.

In Idaho on Tuesday, the state House passed a bill that would make providing gender-affirming care to transgender youths a felony—punishable by life in prison. It also includes a provision making it a crime for parents or guardians to permit their child to travel out of state for treatment.

The bill, H.B. 675, easily passed in a 55-13 vote, with just one Republican joining all the Democrats in rejecting the measure. The measure will now move to the state Senate and may be signed into law by Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, if it passes.

[…]

Coleman's proposal is "more proof that it's not about abortion, it's about controlling people who can become pregnant," said reproductive rights advocate Justine Sandoval.

These proposed laws fly right in the face of the Constitution. According to Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 only Congress shall have Power, “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes…”

The University of Missouri-Kansas City had this to say,

Dean Milk Co. v Madison (1951) deals with discrimination against out-of-state (as well as much in-state) commerce not by a state, but by a city.  At issue in yet another milk case was a Madison, Wisconsin ordinance that prohibited the sale of milk in Madison that was bottled more than five miles from the city's center.  The ordinance was justified by Madison as necessary to facilitate inspection by city dairy inspectors.  Finding the ordinance discriminatory and believing that reasonable non-discriminatory alternatives existed, the Supreme Court invalidated the ordinance despite the fact that a Milwaukee dairy was shut out of town just as much as one from Illinois.

What this means is that a state can not stop you from doing what is legal in another state. Suppose that you go to a state where marijuana is legal and you smoke some there, you cannot be arrested when you come back to your state (Provided you are not stoned when you drive back.).

Some GOP legislators want to ban out-of-state abortions, too

Can Republicans in one state punish residents who travel to another state to receive medical care?
MSNBC
By Steve Benen
March 11, 2022


[…]
A Republican in Missouri wants to add to this list: If you were to help a Missouri woman get an abortion in some other state, under state Rep. Coleman’s plan, random citizens could sue you, too.

This is almost certainly unconstitutional — Missouri isn’t supposed to pass laws that punish what happens in Illinois — but Republicans in the Show Me State might pass it anyway and take their chances in the courts.

[…]

If the measure is signed into law, litigation is inevitable.

In Elite Daily they write,

To date, it’s never been illegal in America to travel to another state for abortion care. “It is legal to have an abortion past six weeks in another state,” says Marzouk [Tamara Marzouk, the director of abortion access], referring to Texas’ six-week ban. It’s also legal to support “someone in obtaining a legal abortion in another state,” she says, whether through providing financial support, transportation, or anything else that makes abortion care more accessible. In fact, when heavy restrictions on abortion go into effect in one state, it’s common for people to begin traveling to neighboring states to access abortion care. More than half a million women traveled outside their home state to have an abortion between 2012 and 2017, according to the Associated Press.

"You bet your sweet bippy!" that these laws will be heard before the Supreme Court, but the problem is that the court is packed by Trump with judges who believe in so called “state’s rights” and the ruling could give the states to regulate what is legal in other states and ban travel between states.

* “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" by Paul Simon.