Conservative lawmakers across the U.S. have let loose a wave of state legislation attempting to restrict access to abortions and to gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth by allowing lawsuits to be filed against anyone who helps them.
But now there’s a new twist in a broader Republican strategy: Representatives in multiple states are pushing bills that would attempt to limit what residents can and can’t do beyond state lines.
Recently in Missouri, a state representative introduced a measure that would let people sue anyone they suspect of helping a resident get an abortion in another state.
Legal experts say these so-called bounty hunter bills are most certainly unconstitutional and have little chance of withstanding legal challenges.
“States are free to have their own rules, and those rules differ from state to state. But the notion that a state can tell its citizens what they could do, not just within but without their borders, really is anathema to how we think of our constitutional system,” Stephen Vladeck, a constitutional scholar and law professor at the University of Texas School of Law, tells NPR.
At their core, Vladeck says, such bills are legal experiments intended to slowly erode constitutional protections.
