The Principle Of Residential Jurisdiction: Abortion Trafficking Bills Are The Opening Salvo
These bill types are the opening salvo. They start with children and then expand to adults.
They start with gender affirming care, "genital mutilation", hormone therapy and expand to contraception, vasectomies, and tubal ligations. They target hormones affecting ones gender and then argue contraception effectively does the same thing. They argue "cutting apart children's genitals" is mutilation, and then expand the argument to adult voluntary sterilization.
They start with criminalizing all abortions within a state, and then argue the "residential principle of jurisdiction" means that states can prosecute out of state physicians who perform abortions on their own citizens - even if its legal in the other state.
The Principle of Residential Jurisdiction: This is a minority fringe of fascist minds arguing States can regulate their citizens' conduct outside their borders. That is, States can extend their laws extraterritorially to their residents wherever they are in the US, regardless of the laws in the state they are in. Normally, we think in terms of territorial jurisdiction, however, the radical fringe argues that Sovereigns are equal and Privileges and Immunities may not interfere with their ability to effect their own laws on their residents.
This is the issue when it comes to abortion and extraterritorial applications of associated criminal and civil law.
When the US was founded, travel was extremely arduous, and going from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts took a LONG time. The privileges and immunities clause and states regulating almost entirely within their borders was generally constrained by the fact if someone wanted to go from PA to Mass and visit a Physician performing abortions there, it was a long, tedious, and tenuous process where the traveler probably spent a good, long few days/weeks outside the territorial boundaries of PA. That was probably sufficient to disentangle any minimum contacts with PA required for personal jurisdiction.
Nowadays, someone can fly from Texas to Boston, get an abortion, and then be home literally the same day. The Founders never, ever envisioned that being a possibility. How long must one be out of a state for minimum contacts to fall away?
When Y'all Qaeda's sitting majority in SCOTUS is faced with the scenario above (TX to Boston and back in the same day) it would look to what travel and personal jurisdiction requirements were way back then. Look at Heath vs Alabama recognizing Alito and Thomas' desire to reshape society in their worldview. The results are terrifying.
What does all this mean? It means some think State A can regulate its citizens' conduct while out of state. Why? Because if you only subscribe to the territorial principle, it becomes a "race to the bottom" where local laws can be evaded by walking 3 feet over a state line.
For example, prostitution is illegal in Alabama, and so is swinging technically. Bob and Marcy decided to go to Nevada and visit a brothel. They have a wonderful time and come home and tell everyone in town about it. Sally and Rob decide to go to NV to have some fun, and they come home. After hearing about Bob and Marcy and Sally and Rob, Sue and Rick talk about the possibility of swinging, and join a few apps to meet other couples. They go to a Miami swingers club and have a weekend of fun.
Now, the whole town is abuzz with all of this stuff illegal under AL law, BUT it all took place outside of AL. A local news station covers all of these events. Some people are shocked and disgusted at this and want something done. Kids in the high school and local college are now having conversations about swinging and polyamory.
The residential jurisdiction and heterogeneity theories argue that states have an interest in being able to stop out of state conduct that evades local laws because of the negative effects within its boundaries of a scenario like the one above. Being able to solicit a prostitute and participate in swinging by simply crossing a state line 3 feet away creates that "race to the bottom" where anyone can hop across the border and be free. Thus, under these theories states should be able to penalize those citizens that travel out of state and do something illegal in their home state.
We are marching towards residential jurisdiction, heterogeneity of laws, and common good originalism.
This is not a good thing.
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