“[A]ll enforcement of the recruitment provision” of Tennessee’s so-called “Abortion Trafficking” statute is now preliminarily enjoined, U.S. District Court Judge Aleta A. Trauger has ordered. The decision comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by Horwitz Law, PLLC clients Rachel Welty and Tennessee State Representative Aftyn Behn: two high-profile advocates for Tennesseans’ access to safe and legal abortion care who sought a preliminary injunction forbidding enforcement of the new law based on concerns that they would be prosecuted under it for their lawful advocacy.
“No one associated with Chapter 1032 seems to have a particularly clear picture of what the provision is supposed to prohibit—not the prosecutors who will be called on to enforce it; not the state attorneys called on to defend the statute in court; and, it seems, not even the individuals who drafted the provision itself,” Judge Trauger’s ruling reads. “A law creating criminal exposure for statements encouraging abortion, but imposing no consequences for otherwise identical statements discouraging abortion, involves a picking and choosing between viewpoints that is wholly incompatible with either the First Amendment or the neutrality that the Supreme Court espoused in Dobbs.” And “despite the defendants’ repeated references to what the recruitment provision would mean if ‘properly’ read or construed, it is still unclear what the defendants are suggesting that the provision does mean—other than, generally, that it means something that would prevent them from losing this case.”
“Judge Trauger’s thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion protects the right of all Tennesseans to share truthful information about abortion without fear that crusading prosecutors will try to punish them criminally for doing so,” said Horwitz Law, PLLC principal Daniel A. Horwitz—Welty and Behn’s lead counsel—who represents the plaintiffs alongside Horwitz Law, PLLC attorneys Sarah Martin and Melissa Dix. “It also affirms that the government has no authority to enact vague and overbroad laws that criminalize pure speech based on the government’s disagreement with a speaker’s point of view. This is a major victory for Ms. Welty, Representative Behn, and all Tennesseans who believe that the government has no right to prosecute citizens for sharing truthful information.”
A copy of the District Court’s memorandum opinion granting the Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction can be accessed here: https://horwitz.law/wp-
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