A Tennessee law preventing adults from giving information to minors about legal out-of-state abortions will remain blocked, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled.
A three-judge panel agreed with a federal district judge that barring adults from giving out information about abortions violates the First Amendment.
Senior United States Judge Jane Stranch said in her ruling the Tennessee law had “no compelling interest in shielding its citizens from information about activities outside its borders.”
Stranch added in the ruling, the state “criminalizes speech that encourages a minor to get an abortion yet is silent on speech encouraging a minor to carry a pregnancy to term with or without parental involvement.”
Tennessee lawmakers passed the law in 2024, two years after the state’s near-total abortion ban went into effect following the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
State. Rep. Aftyn Behn, a Nashville Democrat, and attorney Rachel Welty filed a lawsuit against the law shortly after its passage, and a federal district judge prevented it from taking effect.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti then appealed the ruling.
The blocked law made it a misdemeanor for any adult who “recruits, harbors, or transports a pregnant un-emancipated minor” to obtain an abortion, including drug-induced abortion, without consent from the minor’s legal guardian.
