Judge partially blocks Tennessee law that bans taking minors out of state for abortions– www.lifesitenews.com

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(LifeSiteNews) — A federal judge blocked part of Tennessee’s “Underage Abortion Trafficking Act,” which bars the recruiting, harboring, or transporting of a pregnant minor who is not their child to obtain an out-of-state chemical or surgical abortion, for purported violations of the First Amendment.

In a July 18 ruling, Senior 6th District Court of Appeals Judge Julia Gibbons, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, stated that the provision of the 2024 law that bans the “recruitment” of underage girls to obtain an out-of-state abortion violates the First Amendment by allowing speech discouraging abortion while prohibiting speech encouraging aborting an unborn child. The ruling comes in response to a lawsuit filed by Democratic pro-abortion state Rep. Aftyn Behn, who sought to block the legislation, alleging that the law violated “free speech.”

“(The recruitment provision) prohibits speech encouraging lawful abortion while allowing speech discouraging lawful abortion,” Gibbons wrote in the ruling. “That is impermissible viewpoint discrimination, which the First Amendment rarely tolerates — and does not tolerate here.”

“Because abortion is generally illegal in Tennessee, the state may constitutionally punish speech made in direct furtherance of in-state abortions,” the judge added. “The state may not, however, criminalize speech recruiting a minor to procure a legal abortion in another state.”