Abortion

You Can 'Recruit' a Minor for an Abortion in Tennessee

A federal appeals court has permanently blocked the recruitment provision of Tennessee's "abortion trafficking" law.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown | 9.28.2026 11:08 AM

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Tennessee can't stop people from telling teens how to get abortions in other states, per a new ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

The case concerns Tennessee's Underage Abortion Trafficking Act, which criminalizes the "recruit[ment]" of a minor for any procedure that "would constitute a criminal abortion" under Tennessee law.

In Tennessee, almost all abortions are criminal. And with its abortion trafficking statute, the state "purports to reach beyond Tennessee's regulation of abortion within its own borders," as Judge Jane B. Stranch writes in the court's opinion, issued September 24. Its recruitment provision outlaws "recruitment for abortions that are illegal in Tennessee but legal where they take place."

This won't fly, said the appeals court, ruling in favor of abortion rights advocates Rachel Welty and Aftyn Behn by affirming a lower court's permanent injunction against the recruitment provision.

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Free Speech and Reproductive Freedom

Welty and Behn advise people in Tennessee—including minors—about how to obtain an abortion in out-of-state places where the procedure is legal. Making this illegal violates their First Amendment rights, they argued, and the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee agreed.

The 6th Circuit has now affirmed that lower court's ruling, saying the recruitment provision is overly broad and amounts to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

This case is interesting for several reasons. It sits at the intersection of reproductive freedom and free speech—an intersection that might seem odd but is actually quite crowded. In order to enforce abortion bans, a lot of places have also attempted to ban certain sorts of talk about places where abortion isn't banned.

The case also involves a great example of anti-abortion politicians using inflammatory (some might say biased) language to muster support for their policies.

"Underage abortion trafficking" conjures an image of someone forcing pregnant girls to get abortions. "Recruitment" suggests that someone is aggressively marketing and selling abortions, perhaps even exerting coercive pressure.

But the law's language is much broader. It says an adult commits the crime of abortion trafficking of a minor if the adult "intentionally recruits, harbors, or transports a pregnant unemancipated minor" for purposes of procuring an abortion for the minor, obtaining abortion pills for them, or concealing an abortion from their parents or guardians.

As written, it could be used against people like Welty, a family law attorney in Nashville who focuses on child advocacy work and sometimes sees minors who are seeking abortions without parental consent. "There may be a lot of reasons why they don't see[k] the........

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