As soon as the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago, anti-abortion activists started debating if and how they could limit Americans’ ability to cross state lines for legal abortions.

The man, Collin Davis, said in court records that when he learned his former partner planned to get an abortion in February 2024, he hired an attorney who would “pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child”.

However, activists determined to end abortion nationwide have launched a series of legislative and legal volleys to undermine that right, often by targeting groups and individuals who may help patients travel.

Alabama’s attorney general has threatened to prosecute groups that help women leave the state for abortions – a threat that a federal judge beat back forcefully earlier this week.

Court records in Davis’s case also repeatedly cite the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-vice law that, in the eyes of some abortion opponents, bans the mailing of abortion-related materials nationwide.

Such an interpretation of the Comstock Act, which the Biden administration disagrees with, would result in a de facto national ban on abortions, because clinics rely on the mail to obtain the drugs and equipment they need to do their jobs.

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