Now that our Supreme Court has opened the gates to our state criminalizing abortion, women seeking abortions will, if they have the means, travel to states that allow the procedure. There is a solution for this. Mississippi — or Texas, or Utah, or Georgia — may simply criminalize interstate travel for the purpose of having an abortion. Interstate travel for the purpose of doing nefarious things with a minor is already a criminal act, after all.
The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly guarantee interstate travel rights. The Articles of the Confederation did, as freedom to travel among the various states was obviously necessary to the making of a nation from a union of states, but the writers of the Constitution apparently took this right for granted.
Since the circuit court ruling Corfield v. Coryell in 1823, freedom of movement has been judiciously recognized as a fundamental Constitutional right. The courts have always interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment as implying this right, but it doesn’t actually say so. In fact, the federal government does not have the authority to enforce this freedom. The courts have held that this authority was given to the states.
So, Mississippi can outlaw interstate travel for any reason. Our women can be prosecuted regardless of where they aborted. This is also how we could keep our best and brightest students from leaving the state for college, or to take a better-paying job.
Given the makeup of our Supreme Court, which seems to reject any right not explicitly granted in writing by the Constitution, such a law would probably be upheld if challenged.
This would have the additional benefit of making the failure of secession moot. Without guaranteed interstate travel, the several states would soon fracture into separate and independent political entities. There would be guarded border crossings at every state line. Mississippi could finally be free.
Bill Gillmore, Columbus
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