Judge rules Alabama cannot prosecute those who help with out-of-state abortions
Alabama's attorney general cannot prosecute individuals and groups that help Alabama women travel to other states to obtain abortions, a federal judge ruled on Monday.
US district judge Myron Thompson sided with an abortion fund and medical providers who sued Alabama's attorney general, Steve Marshall, after he suggested they could face prosecution under anti-conspiracy laws. Thompson's ruling declared that such prosecutions would violate both the first amendment and a person's right to travel.
Marshall has not pursued any such prosecutions. However, he said he would 'look at closely' whether facilitating out-of-state abortions is a violation of Alabama's criminal conspiracy laws. The ruling was a victory for the Yellowhammer Fund, an abortion assistance fund that had paused providing financial assistance to low-income people in the state because of the possibility of prosecution.
Alabama bans abortion at any stage of pregnancy with no exceptions for rape or incest.
'It is one thing for Alabama to outlaw by statute what happens in its own backyard. It is another thing for the state to enforce its values and laws, as chosen by the attorney general, outside its boundaries by punishing its citizens and others who help individuals travel to another state to engage in conduct that is lawful there but the attorney general finds to be contrary to Alabama's values and laws,' Thompson wrote in the 131-page opinion.
Thompson said it would be the same as the state trying to prosecute Alabamians planning a Las Vegas bachelor party since casino gambling is also outlawed in the state.
The Yellowhammer Fund, an obstetrician and others had filed lawsuits seeking a court declaration that such prosecutions are not allowed.
'Today is a good day for pregnant Alabamians who need lawful out-of-state abortion care,' Jenice Fountain, executive director of the Yellowhammer Fund, said in a statement. 'The efforts of Alabama's attorney general to isolate pregnant people from their communities and support systems has failed.'
A spokesperson for the Alabama attorney general's office said 'the office is reviewing the decision to determine the state's options'.
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Leader Live
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Care homes and hospices must have right to opt out of assisted dying, MPs hear
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Among those opposed to the Bill, Paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson – who would have a vote on the Bill should it make its way to the Lords – has argued the Bill has 'not been made safer', criticising the scrapping of the much-lauded High Court safeguard in favour of expert panels. Other changes made to the Bill – which concerns only England and Wales – in recent months during a weeks-long committee process include the timeframe in which an assisted dying service might come into effect being doubled to four years from royal assent. In its current form the Bill would mean terminally ill adults with only six months left to live could apply for assistance to end their lives, with approval needed from two doctors and the expert panel. It is possible this part of the parliamentary process, known as the report stage, will run into a second day next month, meaning a vote on approval or rejection of the overall Bill would not take place on Friday. Bringing her Bill back to Parliament, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater said assisted dying must be legalised to avoid terminally ill people acting out of desperation or making 'traumatic' trips to Switzerland. As Friday's session – which could last for up to five hours – opened, she told MPs gathered in the Commons: 'Put simply, if we do not vote to change the law, we are essentially saying that the status quo is acceptable.' Referring to stories she had heard of people dying in 'deeply difficult and traumatic circumstances', she added: 'Too many have seen their terminally ill loved ones take their own lives out of desperation, or make the traumatic, lonely and costly trip to Switzerland, and then face a police investigation while dealing with their grief and loss.' 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Daily Mail
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Marjorie Taylor Greene and Democrat clash over MS-13 during hearing
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04-05-2025
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Canada put on the map by London-born Welshman
Donald Trump's suggestion Canada becomes the 51st state has brought into the spotlight international boundaries that have remained firm since a Welshman plotted them more than 200 years ago. Born in 1770, Dafydd ap Thomas, or David Thompson as he was better known, surveyed and mapped more than four million square miles of the country's escaped poverty, and despite being partially blind and having a permanent limp from a badly broken leg, he used the stars to plot latitude and longitude. His achievements include being the first westerner to navigate the Columbia River from its source to the Pacific Ocean, and charting the border between Canada and the US. His international boundary remains firm to this day, with Canadians furiously rejecting US President Trump's suggestion that their country abandons it and becomes the US' "51st state"."Throughout the 1810s and early 1820s, Thompson charted every inch of the disputed boundary, zig-zagging between the Great Lakes and noting the landmarks and river flow all the way along to within a mile or so's accuracy," said biographer D'Arcy Jenish."His maps are still the basis of the modern-day boundary, something which Donald Trump would probably rather forget."Thompson fostered close relations with several Native American nations in his work, and became known as Koo-Koo-Sint - or also campaigned for the rights of First Nation people, and married a Cree woman, Charlotte, their 57-year marriage the longest recorded in Canada at the time. Thompson's parents moved to London from Radnorshire shortly before his birth, where they adopted the anglicised Thompson rather than ap his second birthday, his father died suddenly, leaving a wife and two children with no means of supporting seven, Thompson was enrolled in Westminster Grey Coat Hospital - a school for promising disadvantaged was there he discovered a love of it is a girls academy, and archivist Penny Swan said it was set up by local tradesmen with children at when Thompson arrived in 1777, the matron was a "dreadful human being" called Mrs Thoms."She stole the children's food rations and sold them on, as well as administering dreadful beatings," she Swan found documents showing pupils smashed windows and started fires to get expelled and escape floggings, semi-starvation and cruelty. Nevertheless, Thompson thrived, writing of his love for novels such as Gulliver's 1916 biographer J B Tyrrell commented: "His early handwriting is beautifully distinct and regular, and his spelling is remarkably good for the time and circumstances in which he lived."He excelled to such an extent that by 14 he secured a seven-year apprenticeship, working on fur-trapping ventures into by the late 1780s, he lost the sight in his right eye after an infection, and suffered a life-threatening leg break. D'Arcy Jenish wrote the 2003 account of Thompson's life, Epic Wanderer, and said: "He suffered a horrible injury in a sledging accident. "I believe he broke his femur, and they didn't think he'd live."It took him a year to get over that, and even then he'd walk with a pronounced limp for the rest of his life."But in that year, he met Peter Fidler, a surveyor, who got Thompson hooked on celestial navigation - using the sun and stars to determine helped Thompson make a connection with native people, as they also revered the the native people were searching the sky for tales of ancestors, Thompson was pinpointing latitude and longitude. It was customary for graduates to be awarded two new suits and a cash when Thompson completed his apprenticeship in 1792, he asked for a sextant, telescope and other navigational equipment Jenish said: "He was a man in high demand, not only because of his navigational skills, but also his mastery of several native languages, and his ability to forge working relationships."He described him as a genius, saying his plotting of Canada's notoriously complex waterways were accurate to within a mile, despite the lack of depth perception he experienced through sight the 1810s, he had discovered a trading route through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific via the previously uncharted Columbia River. By 1812, he planned on returning to a desk job in Montreal, with wife Charlotte and their growing Thompson's plans for a quiet retirement were curtailed after the end of the 1812 British-American brought about a need for the border between Canada and the US to be settled once and for Jenish said there was only one man for the job - and the accuracy of Thompson's work meant it was accepted by both sides. "They were their own people, like they were voyagers," Luke Thompson said of his seven-times great said the family are "massively proud" of their achievements, adding: "The fact that they called David Koo-Koo-Sint tells you all you need to know about how much they were accepting of each other's cultures."Out there back then, there was no civilisation really, like no cities, no nothing around. "So sometimes you had to rely on each other to survive." In the 1820s, Thompson retired a relatively wealthy bad investments, bad luck and resentment from some Canadians who felt short-changed by the unswerving fairness of his boundary survey saw him become his old age, he was forced back to saw him map out streets in Canada's growing towns. He died in Montreal in February 1857, aged 86, shortly before his marriage of 57 years and nine months was the longest recorded in Canadian history at the Jenish said: "Charlotte was by his side for 58 years from when they met in 1799 until his death in 1857."Not left back home, but on his adventures, supporting him with practical skills and local knowledge in an inhospitable landscape, and sharing in his achievements."
