For the first time since Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton became the law of the land, we have the legions of Moloch on the run.

Why do I say that? In the last session of the Supreme Court, there were two critical events. In the first instance, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a defense of a new Mississippi law that prohibits abortion after 15-weeks. This is unusual because the Court had the option of going along with a Fifth Circuit decision striking down the law, it didn’t. It elected to take the case (Supreme Court Accepts a Mississippi Abortion Case That Seems Likely to Overturn Planned Parenthood vs. Casey), framing it as “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.” The oral hearing went spectacularly bad for the pro-aborts. The second key event was the Supreme Court refusing to strike down the Texas “heartbeat law” and its unique enforcement mechanism (Supreme Court Humiliates Biden, Refuses to Stop Texas Heartbeat Law, and Gorsuch and the Wise Latina Have a Public Spat). A heated comment by the “dim-bulb Latina,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor (see Does Justice Sotomayor’s Intemperate Rant at Her Colleagues Indicate That She Knows Roe v. Wade Is About to Be Overturned?) led many to speculate that the fake constitutional right to abortion has joined Dred Scott and Plessy on the dunghill of injustice.

In short, we are on the cusp of winning what the Pro-Life movement has been hoping for since its earliest days. We are about to see abortion lose its status as a right guaranteed under the federal constitution, and each state is allowed to decide what its abortion policy to be. In about half of the country, abortion will become illegal or only permissible within very narrow parameters. About half of the country will mope ahead using Roe v. Wade as a guide, and we will be free to pick off some of those states. Some states will remain hardcore refuges of child sacrifice. California, for instance, is talking about subsidizing travel and lodging for women making the trip to California to have their kid dismembered. In short, the legal status of abortion will be what most of us have wanted.

Unfortunately, some people on our side can’t settle for victory.

Missouri lawmakers want to stop their residents from having abortions — even if they take place in another state.

The first-of-its-kind proposal would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident have an abortion — from the out-of-state physician who performs the procedure to whoever helps transport a person across state lines to a clinic, a major escalation in the national conservative push to restrict access to the procedure.

Republican state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, who is pushing the Missouri policy as an amendment to multiple health bills, said it specifically targets a Planned Parenthood clinic in Illinois just across the river from St. Louis that opened in 2019 with the explicit goal of serving Missouri patients.

“If you believe as I do that every person deserves dignity and respect and protection whether they’re born or unborn, then of course you want to protect your citizens, no matter where they are,” Coleman told POLITICO. “If a Missouri resident is hurt, even in Illinois, by a product that they bought in Illinois, there is still jurisdiction for them to sue in a Missouri court because that’s home for them … and this is extending that same kind of thought to abortion jurisprudence.”

Her effort puts Missouri at the vanguard of a new round of action in state capitals where conservatives are rushing to enact legislation ahead of an anticipated Supreme Court ruling that sharply limits or overturns Roe v. Wade.

The Missouri proposal is on the legislative calendar, meaning it could be voted on any time before the session ends in May. The legislation goes further than most abortion restrictions advancing across the country, and attempts to evade legal challenges by adopting the same private enforcement mechanism as Texas’ six-week abortion ban, which the Supreme Court has allowed to stay in place for the last six months. Both policies allow a judge to award at least $10,000 in damages if the suit is successful.

Here is the problem as I see it. Can a state make it illegal for you to take part in an activity that is legal in another state? For instance, if New York passed a law making it a felony to enter a restaurant without having your proof of COVID vaccination, could you be prosecuted for dining out in Florida without such proof? Can you be arrested for possessing pot in a state where “medicinal” marijuana is legal if your home state still outlaws it? As you can see, if this idea is adopted to try to prevent women from traveling to an abortion-friendly state, the potential for mischief is meaningless. Already California is trying to use the enforcement mechanism in the Texas heartbeat law to attack gun sales.

Parts of What Coleman proposes have uncomfortable echoes of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, where officials in states that had outlawed slavery could be fined for not apprehending fugitive slaves.

I have no problem with laws forbidding taking minors across state lines for an abortion without parental consent (this, to me, means both parents). I favor states cracking down on the virtual consultations and mail order delivery of abortion pills. I’m 100% in favor of long prison terms for anyone participating in an abortion if the state has outlawed it. But, at some point, we need to realize that a lot of the country does not think abortion is wrong, and the way to move them is by education, not by the coercive power of the state. The last thing we need is ill-conceived laws that will have the effect of making heroes and martyrs of women who travel out of state for an abortion. The idea that any state government can compel you to follow its laws once you cross state lines should be abhorrent both in principle and where it is obviously going to lead us in the way of individual rights.