Alabama’s Controversial Abortion Ban

By Rachel Gray

Women’s reproductive rights has been a heavily debated topic in Congress, as well as the Judicial branch, in the past 30 years. However, the attention to these issues has increased exponentially since Republicans gained control over the Senate in the midterm elections and now the Supreme Court is leaning towards the right with Kavanaugh’s appointment. This shift towards a right-leaning government has shifted the political agenda towards more controversial issues such as abortion laws as seen in the Georgia Heartbeat Bill.

Since this passing of this bill, many other states have begun to draft their own restrictive laws on abortion that follow the ideas of the Heartbeat Bill. Late Tuesday night, Alabama’s Senate passed a bill that banned nearly all abortions. This new bill, which passed 25-6,  is one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the United States.” The bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform abortions at any stage of a pregnancy, unless a woman’s life is threatened or in case of a lethal fetal anomaly.”1 Not only does this bill put women in danger, but it includes a penalty of up to 99 years in prison for doctors who perform abortions. There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest unlike in Georgia’s Heartbeat Bill. This bill, which excludes exceptions, has an agenda to directly challenge the Roe v Wade decision that established a woman’s right to abortion. In doing so, the Alabama Senate hopes to push the idea that “a fetus is a person with rights.”2 Although the Democrats didn’t have the votes to stop this bill, many Senators such as Sen. Vivian Davis Figures “questioned why supporters would not want victims of rape or incest to have an exception for a horrific act.” This bill has no other qualifications for a time period of fetus duration like the Heartbeat bill’s 6 week period- whereas this bill states that the moment on conception is the determining factor that grants fetus rights. “Those who backed the new law said they don’t expect it to take effect, instead intending its passage to be part of a broader strategy by antiabortion activists to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion nationwide.”3

Upon researching this bill, it appears that this bill will punish women at the expense of political gain. Not only is restricting safe abortions morally corrupt but to claim to be pro-life is contradictory to the fact that Alabama “fails to support children once they are born” as stated by Susan Pace Hamill, a law professor at the University of Alabama. As I’ve stated many times before, banning legal abortions will open the flood gates to unsafe, back-alley abortions which put financially challenged, minority women at risk.

The issue of religion also comes into play as evangelical republican senators like Sen. Clyde Chambliss claim that “if we terminate the life of an unborn child, we are putting ourselves in God’s place.” Not only does this violate the separation of church and state doctrine, but it attacks those without a faith who are pro-choice. In the long run, the real fight isn’t about if you’re pro-life or pro-choice, but it hints at the question of how much control does the government have over a woman’s body?

In the future, with the increasing rate of these bills, I believe we will see the precedent of Roe v Wade tested like never before. This isn’t the last of these heartbeat bills, but with the support of these bills also comes the equal rise in dissent towards the bills as well. The fight for reproductive rights is far from over for women all across the world. In order to ensure equal protection under the law, we must fight for one another and guarantee that everyone is given an equal opportunity to choose what they believe is the right decision for their person- which, in turn, means ensuring that there is legal access for women to safe abortions in all 50 states.