Last month, a federal court in Alabama held that it was unconstitutional for the state to prosecute, or threaten to prosecute, abortion funds and others who help pregnant people travel out of state for legal abortions. In a decision running 131 pages, Yellowhammer Fund v. Marshall, offers plenty to inform future litigation and judicial opinions on a variety of constitutional and legal issues. One of the most interesting and novel of those is at the intersection of abortion access and the right of interstate travel.  

In 2022, when the Alabama Attorney General first threatened prosecutions, the Yellow Hammer Fund (a reproductive justice organization serving the Deep South) paused its financial and logistical support for people seeking to travel for legal abortions outside Alabama. Last month funds immediately began flowing after the court issued its decision in the case. According to Jenice Fountain, Executive Director of Yellowhammer Fund, “The decision came at about 5:30, I think we funded an abortion at 5:45 — because that's how severe the need is, that's how urgent it is that we get back to work that we’re doing.”   

But the ability to continue this urgent work depends, in part, on the staying power of the trial court’s final judgment.  

This is the first post-Dobbs abortion case in which a court has declared that the federal constitutional right to interstate travel prohibits a state from punishing people — and those who help them — for traveling out of state for legal abortion care. To most this is an obvious conclusion. In Dobbs itself, Justice Kavanaugh wrote that the question of whether a “State may bar a resident of that state from travel to another State to obtain an abortion” had an easy answer: “no, based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.” But, as many feared, some states — including Alabama and Idaho — tested that premise. Three years later, the Alabama federal court is the first to decide it. And while an appeal is likely, Judge Thompson’s opinion offers both the legal, and “history and tradition,” grounding the current Supreme Court demands for deciding constitutional rights questions today. 

The opinion is striking in many respects — footnote twenty especially. In judicial opinions, footnotes can provide poison pills or hidden gems (depending on your perspective) for future decisions and litigation. For those working to advance robust constitutional protections for reproductive rights, footnote twenty offers a gem. There Judge Thompson cites the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Dobbs and a gun rights case, N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, to conclude that: “Because the right-to-travel is a substantive right ‘deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,’ the court finds that infringing on the right here is categorically unconstitutional.”  This approach is even more protective than the “strict scrutiny” test courts apply when reviewing infringements of other important rights, such as freedom of expression. And, notably, applying strict scrutiny, Judge Thompson also held that the attorney general’s threats violated plaintiffs’ First Amendment speech rights as well.  

More importantly, footnote twenty tops off sixty pages of analysis canvassing pre-founding and founding-era writings regarding the right-to-travel, along with the robust body of judicial precedent and legal scholarship on the “history and jurisprudence of the right to travel.”  

Relying on these sources, the opinion underscores the right to travel as fundamental and foundational to our Constitution and concludes it is impermissible for a state to attempt a “backdoor circumvention” by targeting “those who would provide necessary assistance” to exercise the right. It is a powerful example of how federal courts can check constitutionally impermissible overreach by states. And it stands as an important addition to a body of emerging caselaw showing — despite Dobbs— courts can consider history and tradition in ways that vindicate abortion access and reproductive rights for people living in the world today.

CRHLP Executive Director Melissa Goodman is featured in a new Northwell Health article in partnership with Stacker discussing the legal threats facing IVF in the aftermath of Dobbs, including how fetal personhood laws are being used to endanger access to reproductive technologies. As Melissa explains, “IVF is most certainly at risk.” The article explores the implications of the Alabama Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling that embryos in test tubes in a lab freezer are “people” under the law, the response from clinics and lawmakers, and the broader political landscape that continues to put IVF and fertility care in jeopardy. Read the full piece here and check out our resource, How This Election Could Affect Access to IVF, to learn more about how federal and state efforts to embed the idea that embryos and fetuses are the same as born children under the law, and other policy approaches could shape the future of IVF. 

Join UCLA Law's Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy, UCLA Law's Critical Race Studies Program, and the Center for Reproductive Rights on Thursday, May 29 for a panel discussion and reception on building new legal frameworks and protections to address the maternal health crisis in the United States. The conversation, moderated by award-winning journalist Nina Martin, will feature scholars, practitioners, and advocates to discuss real-world litigation, current challenges in applying the law, and the pathway to new legal innovations for maternal health. This is a unique opportunity to explore how law can be an innovative tool for justice in the fight for better maternal care for all. RSVP here, space is limited. 

Join UCLA Life Sciences on May 15, 2025, at 5:30 PM PT for Let’s Talk Science: IVF & Emerging Reproductive Technologies. Hosted by Dean of Life Sciences, Tracy Johnson, and featuring CRHLP's executive director Melissa Goodman, this webinar will bring together leading UCLA experts to discuss the science, practice, and policy of IVF and its evolving role in reproductive health. Don't miss this important conversation on the future of IVF and reproductive technologies! Register here to attend.

Illustration: NICHD

New research from the Gender Equity Policy Institute (GEPI), which analyzes CDC data from 2019-2023 finds that maternal mortality is significantly higher in states that have banned abortion since Dobbs, with women in those states nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or shortly after than those who live in states supportive of abortion access. For example, the report found that in Texas, where abortion was banned even before Dobbs, maternal mortality rose 56% in 2022 and remains far above national levels, and that risk of maternal death in Texas was 155% higher than in California, an abortion-supportive state with the nation’s lowest maternal mortality rate.  GEPI’s report also showed stark racial disparities: Black women in abortion ban states are 3.3. times more likely to die than  white women in those states. The report finds Latina maternal mortality was nearly twice as high in banned states as in supportive states. While maternal deaths are unacceptably high in the United States for every pregnant person, the findings underscore how abortion bans are deepening long-standing inequities and endangering the lives of millions—especially Black and Latina mothers. 

Illustration credit: National Abortion Federation

A new report from the National Abortion Federation analyzes the alarming levels of violence and harassment against abortion providers across the United States even as clinic closures and abortion bans have made care harder to access. The 2023–2024 Violence & Disruption Report documents thousands of cases of trespassing, stalking, assault, bomb threats, and more targeting providers. The interactive report includes heat maps, key statistics, and audio stories from providers who face daily threats like trespassing, picketing, and bomb threats—621 cases of trespassing and 296 threats of harm were reported in just the last two years. The report also highlights the weakening of federal protections under the FACE Act. 

Photo credit: Democracy Now

A federal judge in North Dakota has ruled that over 9,000 Catholic employers are exempt from federal requirements to accommodate workers for abortion, fertility treatments, and protections for LGBTQ workers. The lawsuit challenged two actions in 2024 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a rule implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and updated Title VII guidance on workplace discrimination. The decision permanently blocks the EEOC from enforcing key parts of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and updated anti-harassment guidelines against members of the Catholic Benefits Association and the Bismarck Diocese.

Photo credit: Sergio Flores/Getty Images

This month, a federal judge in Nevada ruled that a parental notification law passed 40 years ago can be enforced for the first time starting April 30. The Nevada law requires minors to seek a court order for an abortion without parental notification. The judge’s decision reinstates the law, which had been enjoined as unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade when it was first passed in 1985. After Dobbs overruled Roe, anti-abortion lawyer James Bopp filed a lawsuit on behalf of district attorneys seeking to enforce the law. Planned Parenthood, plaintiffs in the 1985 lawsuit, argued the law remains unconstitutionally vague and violates minors' rights to due process and equal protection. The judge found that those claims were not presented to the court in the current litigation and left open the possibility of further legal challenges.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

A Wyoming judge has temporarily blocked two new abortion laws, allowing the state’s only clinic to resume services after a nearly two-month pause. The judge found that the laws—requiring clinics to meet ambulatory surgical center standards, mandating ultrasounds, and imposing a 48-hour waiting period—likely violate a 2012 state constitutional amendment protecting individuals' rights to make their own health care decisions. The ruling, which follows a series of legislative attempts to restrict abortion in Wyoming, allows Wellspring Health Access, Wyoming’s only full-service abortion clinic, to reopen while the case continues.  

With so much going on in the world of reproductive health, law, and policy, every week we'll share articles, books, and media you might have missed. 

The Real Supreme Court Endgame for Abortion Foes 

‘Make Motherhood Great Again’: Pronatalism Finds a Comfortable Home in the Trump Administration 

Medicaid cuts risk worsening Black maternal health crisis 

Clinics begin closing as Trump admin continues freeze on family planning funds 

Reimagining the future of reproductive health, law, and policy.

UCLA Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy is a think tank and research center created to develop long-term, lasting solutions that advance all aspects of reproductive justice, and address the current national crisis of abortion access.