One of the more shameful moments in congressional history was the passage in 1850 of the Fugitive Slave Act. It required that even slavery-free Northern states must abet that evil institution by returning enslaved people who’d escaped from the South and believed they had attained freedom. With the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, America may again see attempts by states that restrict the freedom of some of their citizens to extend those restrictions into other states. Missouri lawmakers, for example, seriously considered a measure this year that would have presumed to punish out-of-state abortion providers if they serve Missouri women.
Until June 24, that sounded like the kind of clearly unconstitutional scheme that would never survive a court challenge. But now that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has signaled its willingness to rubber-stamp the most extreme items on the Republican agenda, Missouri will almost certainly revisit this dystopian vision, as will other red states.
The court’s decision overturning Roe ostensibly puts decisions regarding abortion rights into the hands of each state legislature. But anyone who thinks the newly invigorated anti-choice movement will be content to stop there hasn’t been paying attention. Missouri’s flirtation last session with what should be called the Fugitive Woman Act is instructive regarding the off-the-charts radicalism of the most extreme anti-abortion rights legislators today.
