I’ve got some ridiculousness coming out of my home state. Alabama is trying to ban all abortions with NO exceptions! This completely unconstitutional bill is a waste of time and money.
The have a sneaky way of accomplishing this restriction. They are going to ask the state to vote on a “personhood” bill; if that passed, all fetuses would be considered people. State representative Jack Williams says that giving fetuses “personhood” would ban abortions at any point in the pregnancy. It may even ban certain kinds of birth control. Williams said:
“Oh I feel very personally. I’m against abortion completely. I’ve lost a daughter myself I know how precious life is. I just don’t see how anyone can at four months abort a child and throw it in the garbage can when we’ll spend $1 million on a 4 1/2 month old preemie.”
Susan Watson of the Alabama ACLU says:
“The Personhood Amendment could essentially ban all abortions and some forms of birth control. We may not all agree about abortion or the question of when life begins, but we should agree that these personal decisions should remain between a woman and her family and her faith. That is why, time and again, when voters have been asked to weigh in on such extreme restrictions, they have voted to protect women’s access to reproductive health care. Similar proposals have failed by a wide margin every time it has been on the ballot.”
The lawmakers are expecting to add amendments to provide exceptions in cases of rape or in cases where the mother’s life is in danger. But those should stay legal to begin with. They don’t need to pass a bill to take a right away and then add it back.
The bill passed committee on Wednesday, and it is expected to reach the Alabama House of Representatives by next Wednesday. If this passes, it would make Alabama the first state to ban abortion completely.
Obviously this is a waste of everyone’s time as the Supreme Court will strike it down anyway.
Featured image via flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
