Republicans in Alabama Just Passed a Bill to Outlaw All Abortions

The bill is designed as a direct challenge to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Mickey Welsh / AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The Alabama State Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that would effectively ban abortion in the state, bringing the nation’s most restrictive abortion legislation one step closer to becoming law. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has not said if she will sign or veto the bill.

As Mother Jones reported last week:

The bill would make it a Class A felony for a physician to perform an abortion, and a Class C felony to attempt to perform one, meaning that a doctor could face up to 99 year in prison for performing an abortion and up to 10 years in prison for attempting one. The text of the bill compares aborted fetuses to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, as well as to victims of several other historical mass murders.

The bill could send physicians to prison for performing abortions, but it would protect women who receive them from being held criminally culpable. On Tuesday, the state Senate voted against an amendment that would have allowed for exceptions in cases of rape and incest.

The bill is meant to challenge Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1974 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed a woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion. When Sen. Rodger Smitherman (D) asked Sen. Clyde Chambliss (R) what the purpose of the bill was during Tuesday’s state Senate debate, Chambliss replied, “So that we can go directly to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe v. Wade.”

Alabama Democrats argued that the bill would lead women to pursue unsafe abortions, cause unnecessary strife to victims of rape and incest, and cost the state money by setting it up for a legal battle. When Smitherman brought up the risk of women dying from self-imposed abortions, Chambliss said, “I would hope no female would do that in the future.”

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer hinted at the possibility of a reevaluation of Roe in his dissent for a case decided Monday, Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt. “The majority has surrendered to the temptation to overrule Hall even though it is a well-reasoned decision that has caused no serious practical problems in the four decades since we decided it,” Breyer wrote, referring to the five conservative judges’ decision to overturn precedent in Monday’s ruling. Breyer cited Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, a 1992 Supreme Court decision that upheld Roe, as an example of another precedent now at risk, adding, “Today’s decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next.”

Other states, such as Ohio and Georgia, have recently passed laws banning abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected—usually at around six weeks’ gestation—but Alabama’s bill goes a step further by outlawing abortion entirely.

Reproductive rights activists have voiced their opposition to the bill, saying it would harm women. “These bans are blatantly unconstitutional and lawmakers know it—they just don’t care,” Staci Fox, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Southeast, said in a statement. “Alabamians are just pawns in this political game to challenge access to safe, legal abortion nationally.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate