The United States of Missouri

Imagine this: you’re on a fishing vacation in Montana and catch the legal limit of fish. However, when you return to Missouri, you face a fine for exceeding the legal limit allowed in Missouri. “But I didn’t break the law in Montana,” you argue. “It doesn’t matter,” the judge replies. “We can enforce Missouri laws in any state we want.”

Sounds ridiculous, right? Unfortunately, that’s the legal reality we’re rapidly approaching.

Missouri and 16 other states are suing to overturn a new federal rule that strengthens protections under HIPAA—the federal law that keeps medical records private. The new rule, implemented by the Biden administration, prevents states from accessing your medical information in other states, particularly to determine whether you’ve received reproductive care that’s illegal in Missouri.

In plain terms: if you’re from Missouri and you get an abortion in Illinois, the new HIPAA rules make sure your medical records are off-limits.

But Missouri wants access to those records for criminal prosecution purposes, and if it gets its way, the state could begin prosecuting its citizens for doing something 100% legal in another state. That’s not just a direct attack on medical privacy; it’s downright unconstitutional.

The lawsuit makes a dangerous argument: that one state’s laws can override the legal authority of another. It turns the idea of federalism on its head. Essentially, Missouri is trying to bypass the rules of federalism and institute a form of cross-border authoritarianism.

The Biden administration’s rule rightly recognized that abortion is not a federal crime; therefore, Missouri has no right to reach into Illinois and criminalize what occurs there. However, under the Trump administration, all bets are off. The rule of law is increasingly a tool of ideology, not of consistency or principle. With Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey eager to bypass any law he deems inconvenient and a legislature that routinely disregards the will of Missouri’s citizens, there’s no telling how much of the U.S. Constitution will be shredded in favor of political extremism.

If Missouri succeeds in this lawsuit, it will set a precedent that endangers not just reproductive rights but the entire concept of legal jurisdiction. Today, it’s abortion. Tomorrow, it could be contraception, vasectomies, or any medical treatment the state’s ruling party decides to oppose.

States were never meant to rule each other. If we allow that to happen, we’re no longer living in a union of states—we’re living in a collection of warring ideological territories, each armed with laws that ignore borders and trample individual rights. We’ll be governed not by the laws of our own state but by the ideologies of someone else’s.