Alabama

Key court hearing as Alabama threatens prosecutions over abortion support

Published

12 months ago

March 5, 2025

Key court hearing as Alabama threatens prosecutions over abortion support

A bellwether test of states’ ability to prosecute people over abortions that take place across state lines will hold a critical hearing on Wednesday, when Alabama abortion rights supporters will square off against the state attorney general over his threats to prosecute groups that help women travel for the procedure.

In the months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, clearing the way for Alabama to ban virtually all abortions, Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall repeatedly suggested that abortion rights activists who help people go out of state for abortions could be charged as participants in an illegal conspiracy. The Yellowhammer Fund, an abortion fund that helped people pay for the procedure, and the West Alabama Women’s Center, a former abortion clinic that pivoted to providing services like miscarriage management, joined with other abortion rights advocates to sue Marshall over his comments.

Now, experts worry that a victory for Alabama could serve as a green light to other states’ efforts to attack people who want to end their pregnancies but live in states that ban abortion.

“If you go to Las Vegas to gamble, but your state doesn’t permit it, you don’t expect for your AG to suggest that anybody who helped you gamble in another state is going to be prosecuted, fined, and jailed,” said Rachel Rebouché, an expert in reproductive health law and the dean of Temple University’s law school.

“It’s a real encroachment on what we take for granted about how states treat each other – but also within the state, that the state will turn its law enforcement power against somebody who has done something that is not illegal.”

Since Marshall’s threats, the Yellowhammer Fund has stopped paying for people’s legal, out-of-state abortions, while the West Alabama Women’s Center is unable to help patients looking for out-of-state abortions, according to court documents. The plaintiffs in the case collectively receive about 95 questions each week from people looking for abortions outside of Alabama.

“The majority of our clients’ patients are poor or low income. They are people who may depend on financial assistance and support in figuring out how to get the resources they need to pay for travel,” said Meagan Burrows, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU, which is representing West Alabama Women’s Center (now known as WAWC Healthcare).

“All of these patients are coming to our clients very distressed, very confused about the legal landscape and their legal options, and are rightly contacting local healthcare providers in Alabama that they trust, who they know have all of the information and resources at their fingertips by virtue of being providers of reproductive healthcare, and former abortion care providers. And our clients have to turn them away.”

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in court filings, it doubled down on Marshall’s claims. “An elective abortion performed in Alabama would be a criminal offense; thus, a conspiracy formed in the state to have that same act performed outside the state is illegal,” one brief read.

The hearing on Wednesday, which will take place in federal court in Montgomery, will deal with requests from both sides for summary judgment, or to move forward without a full trial.

Despite the downfall of Roe, which unleashed a wave of abortion bans across much of the US south and midwest, US abortions have increased in recent years. That rise, abortion rights supporters say, is due in large part to travel, as abortion clinics on the coasts have performed a growing number of procedures on women fleeing states with bans.

In response, anti-abortion activists have begun to test out various ways to attack out-of-state abortion travel, including by limiting talk of it. In Texas, an activist has drawn abortion funds, which help people travel out of state for abortions, into litigation and asked them to turn over information about past abortions. Idaho and Tennessee have passed laws that ban “abortion trafficking” – which they define as transporting a minor for an abortion without parental consent – as well as “recruiting” minors for abortions. A court has blocked the “recruiting” provision in Idaho’s law, citing first amendment concerns, while another court has paused the enforcement of Tennessee’s entire law.

“With criminal penalties for helpers, penalties for providers, what you see are anti-[abortion] rights politicians attempting to stop anyone who is helping a pregnant person or pregnant people from seeking care,” Elisabeth Smith, the director of state policy and advocacy for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the Guardian last year. “The pregnant person, essentially, would be isolated and unable to seek the care that they want and need.”

Abortions have also risen thanks to the emergence of blue-state “shield laws”, which aim to protect providers who dispense medication abortion pills across state lines. Abortion opponents have, in recent weeks, targeted those providers, too. Louisiana has indicted a New York doctor for allegedly dispensing an abortion pill, while Texas has filed a lawsuit against the same doctor.

Mary Ziegler, who studies the legal history of reproduction, sees all of these efforts as intertwined. “It’s part of a broader set of issues about when states can project their power across their borders,” Ziegler said.

Regardless of the outcome of Wednesday’s hearing, red states appear to already be on a warpath. “Attorneys general are just going full speed ahead, even when it comes to out-of-state defendants,” said Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. “I think the gloves came off after the election was over.”

A ruling in the requests for summary judgment is expected in the coming weeks.

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Alabama

Alabama ‘Fully Aware’ of Losing Streak to Tennessee Ahead of Road Rematch

Published

11 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Alabama ‘Fully Aware’ of Losing Streak to Tennessee Ahead of Road Rematch

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Losing to a rival almost always hurts more than falling to another opponent during the regular season. Years of hatred, unforgettable moments and tradition boiled up into one game, and the delivery is nowhere to be found for one team.

No. 17 Alabama has won seven straight games and is eyeing an eighth on Saturday on the road against No. 22 Tennessee. This is the second time that Crimson Tide will face the Volunteers, as Alabama lost in Tuscaloosa in January.

The loss a month ago to head coach Rick Barnes and company brought UA’s losing streak against Tennessee to five games. It’s the first time that the Tide has dropped this many games to the Vols since 1968-72 — a streak that came two years before Alabama head coach Nate Oats was born (Oct. 13, 1974). It’s why Oats is not treating Tennessee as a faceless opponent or like any other team the Tide has faced.

“Every year we’ve been here they’ve caused us issues,” Oats said during Friday’s press conference. “Our players, are fully aware that we’ve lost five in a row. They’re fully aware of what happened out there last year. I’ve taken ownership for my share of what happened up there last year.

“We’re fully aware that they beat us at home. We haven’t lost very many home games in conference, period, really since we’ve been here, and they handed us one this year.”

After falling to Florida on Feb. 1, Alabama moved down to the ninth spot in the conference standings, and the college basketball world started to question whether or not the Crimson Tide would be a threat in the postseason.

But a switch flipped after that loss, and the current winning streak has Alabama tied for the No. 2 spot in the SEC standings. Everything seems to be trending in the Tide’s direction, as there are only three games remaining on the schedule.

Oats is in his sixth year as Alabama’s head coach. Following the retirement of former Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl during the offseason, Oats became the second-longest tenured coach for one team in the conference. The coach in front of him: Tennessee’s Rick Barnes, who has held his position since the 2015-16 season.

Both Alabama and Tennessee have finished conference play in the top-4 of the standings since the 2022-23 season. The Crimson Tide was the regular-season and SEC Tournament champions in both the 2020-21 and 2022-23 seasons, while the Vols won the 2022 SEC Tournament and were the conference’s regular-season champions in 2023-24.

“So our guys know, but at the same time, we’ve got a lot of respect for how they play and what they do. We’ve got to come in with a healthy amount of respect for them, but we got to try to win this game.

“There’s a lot riding on this game. What happens in Arkansas-Florida, you’re either going to be all alone in second place if we could get a win, or you’re going to be one game out first. If you take a loss, now you’re in danger of losing a top-4 seed. They’ll be tied with us if we take a loss.”

“So there’s a lot riding on the SEC standings in this game here. They know that. They know what our struggles against Tennessee have Been as well.”

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Alabama

Selmont seeks incorporation to become independent Alabama city

Published

23 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Selmont seeks incorporation to become independent Alabama city

SELMONT, Ala. (WSFA) – An unincorporated community in Dallas County is seeking to establish itself as an independent city, hoping to gain control over local government services and community priorities that have long been managed at the county level.

Selmont, located across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma, is home to approximately 2,700 registered voters and carries a significant place in civil rights history.

The community was the site of a pivotal moment during the Bloody Sunday march in 1965, when roughly 600 civil rights marchers were tear-gassed by Alabama state troopers, including 13-year-old Mae Richmond.

“People ask us ‘Were we afraid?’ No. We were not afraid. We were not afraid, first of all, even as a 13-year-old child, we knew that we were doing what God was permitting us to do,” Richmond, a 60-plus year resident of Selmont, said of the historic event.

As an unincorporated community, Selmont lacks its own municipal government. Residents must contact the Dallas County Commissioner for public works services. It’s a situation that community leaders say limits responsiveness to local needs.

Erice Williams, a community activist leading the incorporation effort, said the change would fundamentally alter how the community operates.

“It would give us decision power and allow us to get funding that we can allocate to our own community that we can make our own priorities be clear and resolved at the same time,” Williams said.

Williams also highlighted the strain on current county services. “Connel Towns (county commissioner) is the only person we have to call, and the resources and time that he would have to serve our community is very limited,” he said.

Operation Selmont, the group spearheading the incorporation effort, is currently gathering signatures on a petition to present to the local probate judge. The organization needs approximately 500 signatures to move forward with the incorporation process and has already collected 40 percent of its goal.

The next meeting for Operation Selmont is scheduled for March 6 at 6 p.m.

For longtime residents like Richmond, incorporation represents an opportunity to ensure Selmont’s future and maintain its identity for generations to come.

“That we will be able to teach and train our children to give them the strength that our foreparents had that they will be able to stand up for justice and for equality,” Richmond said of her hopes for the community’s future.

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Alabama

Report: Sen. Tuberville, Speaker Ledbetter uniting behind proposal to close Alabama party primaries: ‘Democrats shouldn’t be voting in our elections’

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Report: Sen. Tuberville, Speaker Ledbetter uniting behind proposal to close Alabama party primaries: ‘Democrats shouldn’t be voting in our elections’

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville and Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter (R-Rainsville) announced support on Thursday for closing Alabama’s primary elections to only registered members of each party.

Alabama does not currently have party registration. Instead, voters choose a party ballot at the polls. State law also bars voters from switching parties between a primary and that cycle’s runoff.

Tuberville (R-Auburn) said during a press call with in-state reporters that Democrats have no place voting in Republican elections in Alabama.

“There’s a lot of talk about this,” Tuberville said.
“I’ve spoken with Speaker Ledbetter and we agree that we have to do something about Democrats voting in our elections. They shouldn’t be doing it. I know he’s moving a bill forward very very soon as we speak, and if we can get that done, I think it’s gonna help the cause of the conservative Republicans in the State of Alabama.”
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Under Alabama’s current open primary system, any registered voter can participate in either party’s primary without declaring a party affiliation.

Voters simply choose which party’s ballot they want at the polls. Alabama does not require partisan voter registration, meaning residents register without declaring themselves a Republican or Democrat.

The push to close the Republican primary is not new.

The Alabama Republican Party (ALGOP) passed a resolution in 2022 calling on the Alabama Legislature to require party registration before voters can participate in a party’s primary, but the Legislature did not act on it at the time.

Closing the primary would require changing state law under Ala. Code 17-13-7, which governs the existing open primary system.

“I am proud to work with Coach Tuberville to begin the process of closing Alabama’s primary elections,” Ledbetter said in a statement on Thursday after lawmakers adjourned from the 17th day of the 2026 legislative session.

“Alabamians have made it clear that this is the direction our state needs to begin moving in, and I am committed to doing just that. Whether it was passing school choice, banning DEI, or making Alabama the most pro-life state in the nation, the Alabama Legislature has consistently delivered on its commitment to conservative governance, and we will do the same on this issue. We are in the process of reviewing the proposals before us and are eager to get the ball rolling.”