Midwest Access Coalition Submits Amicus Brief Detailing How Tennessee’s Criminalization of Speech Undermines Parental Rights

Midwest Access Coalition (MAC) challenging Tennessee’s criminalization of abortion support for young people in separate lawsuit

02.06.2026 – (PRESS RELEASE) Earlier this week Midwest Access Coalition (MAC) submitted an amicus brief in Welty v. Dunaway, a legal challenge before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to a Tennessee law that criminalizes speech that helps young people access legal abortion care across state lines.  Until the law took effect, MAC provided critical information and referrals, funding, and practical support to such young people to express solidarity with them.

MAC’s amicus brief explains how contrary to State officials’ claims, criminalizing the speech of third parties like MAC neither promotes parents’ rights to be free of State interference in their childrearing decisions nor helps parents fulfill their obligations towards their children. In fact, it undermines parents’ rights by preventing some parents from helping their children secure necessary support from organizations like MAC.

The Tennessee law makes that support contingent on parents providing “written, notarized consent.”  This is a heavy – if not impossible – burden for many parents. And even those who can meet the requirement should not be saddled with an onerous prerequisite to exercising their parenting choices.

“Politicians in Tennessee are weaponizing parental rights to restrict speech they disfavor,” said Rupali Sharma, Co-Director, Litigation at the Lawyering Project.  “Their distortion of parents’ rights, unmoored from precedent or history, is meant to distract from their trampling on the First Amendment.  By inserting itself into parent-child relationships, however, the only entity encroaching on parents’ rights is the state of Tennessee.”

MAC is challenging the criminalization of expression helping young people access legal abortion care in its own separate legal challenge.  The Lawyering Project represents MAC in that litigation and submitted today’s amicus brief on behalf of the organization.

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