If fetus is a child than Alabama should pay all pregnant women a child benefit (are there child benefits in the States?).
11
Margaret Atwood was perhaps just a little too prophetic in her literature. One suspects she always knew that there was a streak of perverse masculinity running through parts of America that causes men , in particular, to want to control women absolutely, regardless of a woman’s right. Liberty and freedom means is gone, except if you’re a white male that is.
20
Alabama continues to live up to its backward reputation. Extremist policies like this should certainly discourage businesses looking to relocate or establish new offices in Alabama as many workers will be unwilling to relocate to such a regressive state. I can't image people are flocking to Alabama which makes recruiting of talent for specialized positions difficult and will ensure its continued status as a drive-through state.
12
I'll say it again. The day that men voluntarily submit to vasectomies to make this problem go away is the day I believe that this is about pro-life. The day that men are held accountable for the pregnancies that they cause is the day I believe this is pro-life. The day that men take responsibility for the children they produce is the day I believe this is pro-life. I love my kids to pieces, all three sons, but I'll say it again: if you haven't given birth, stay out of the conversation.
23
Oh, just one more thing.
A lesson I would like to offer to Eric Johnston, the man who drafted much of the Alabama bill, and to every other individual of the country who supports him.
The Supreme Court should have no right to decide today if Roe v. Wade should remain binding when the majority of the people believe it should.
The definition of DEMOCRACY: a. Government by the people especially : RULE OF THE MAJORITY.
That should be the end of all conversations.
7
Nothing like promoting and mixing religious values with governmental policy affecting family planning. The conflict of separation of church and state goes back centuries before the making of the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, the religious vs secular pendulum has swung in favor of religion in Georgia, which will mainly affect the poor. I recall when abortion was illegal in the U.S., and those young women who could afford it would either fly to another country to have an abortion or those without the means have it in the back alleys under the care of a nonprofessional.
7
I believe this is entirely motivated by politics. Do the Republican males (including the one in the White House) REALLY care about life, pregnancies, women's health etc? I don't think so. But they cater to those who have been indoctrinated by their religious beliefs to consider abortion a "sin". Thus, they will vote republican.
When will people understand and accept that NOBODY is "for" abortion but FOR A WOMAN'S RIGHT to decide what happens to and in her own body.
10
"If you want to prevent abortion, you need to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Men seem unable (or unwilling) to admit that they cause 100% of them.
Don’t believe me?
Let’s start with this: A woman’s egg is only fertile for about two days each month. Yes, there are exceptions, because nature. But one egg which is fertile two days each month is the baseline. And those fertile eggs are produced for a limited number of years. This means, on average, women are fertile for about 24 days per year.
But men are fertile 365 days a year. In fact, if you’re a man who ejaculates multiple times a day, you could cause multiple pregnancies daily. In theory, a man could cause 1000+ unwanted pregnancies in just one year..."
This, from an article in Medium. Why are men not held accountable in any way for unwanted pregnancy?
22
Please consider, the talking points are not working. The resistance to the anti-abortion crusade weaves and bobs around the central issue that sharply motivates the anti-abortion movement. The crusade is driven by the sincere belief that the Gerber baby pops into existence at the "instant" of conception. If I believed that I'd be out in the street with a machine gun. You and I don't believe that because we have some knowledge of development, genetics, philosophy, theology, and law. Pro-choice talking points focus on the shrinking fraction of the country that doubts anti-abortion propaganda just enough to allow that a subjective belief of when a baby is present can't be commanded by one faction of the country. I see no, zero, effort to educate the country and relieve the obfuscation that makes anti-abortion propaganda so easy. Easily twisted words like "life" and "baby" need to be put into a factual context. The realities of life cycle and development have to be stated repeatedly. The concept of science being able to inform the debate, but not decide it, has to be endlessly driven home. Clever people can do this without getting lost in the weeds.
Ignore this advice, dismiss it as mansplaining, and you've ceded the debate.
11
So, if the intent of the "pro-life" lobby is to declare that the fetus/un-born child is a person, then is that mother/family entitled to claim the child as a tax deduction? Can they (the mom and child) now qualify for support services? Would this now place the family below the poverty line and allow the family to receive full benefits? What say you Alabama? The hypocrisy here is that many of those who want to protect life via a ban on abortions also fully support the death penalty, and refuse to strengthen laws that would mandate support by the child's father, or improve funding for state sponsored programs for the mother, child and family. While abortion should be the last resort and not undertaken lightly, it should remain legal, safe and the choice of the woman. If the pro-life lobby truly wants to reduce abortions, then it should also lobby as strongly for increased funding for those social programs that would support the mother and her child.
11
I am tired of being treated like an animal by people who refuse to accept the fact that women are not beasts. We are people, we are human beings equal to men and have the same right to control our bodies and our futures.
This is enslavement.
It should be specifically against the law. Instead of criminalizing women make laws against people who try to do this to us.
27
dear conservatives: if you don't want the government to make you take vaccines because it is your body, how dare you try to use that same government to have a say about my uterus? Either the government gets a say in our bodies or it doesn't. You don't get to flip/flop to fit the narrative
17
This is an attack on poor women. Those who push for this bill will still seek safe abortions in other states, as plenty of republican women have abortions. The poor are further persecuted under a banner of hypocritical righteousness. If this tribe cared about children, the policies they promoted would show it... instead the tribe refuses to protect children from the moment they are born: denying climate change, not providing universal healthcare, eliminating public education, and almost daily slaughtering via lack of gun regulations. I wish this tribe the full measure of what they sow.
11
I'll take the concerns about abortion seriously when the concerns about police brutality against minorities, domestic violence and mass shootings are taken seriously.
8
If we’re going to limit abortions and force women and girls to be mothers, then we also need to pass a law garnishing the wages of fathers so that they are forced to bear half the costs of gestating, birthing and raising the child. Pair that with abortion restrictions, and you’ll see how quickly conservative “principles” reveal themselves.
13
Dear "White Men in Suits",
If you really care for a "Right to Life", pass a strict gun legislation, so the kids you want so badly do not get shot.
If you really care for a "Right to Life", stop the bellicose saber rattling that will put our soldiers in harm.
If you really care for a "Right to Life", give children free education and their parents a living wage.
And finally - if you really care for a "Right to Life", keep our planet livable and push for renewable energy + sustainable economy.
Stop fiddling with the small stuff + get out of our bedrooms.
18
I am not anti-Republican per se, but I can not understand the obsession with the right-to-life movement. A woman's body is hers and nobody else's and if she wants to have an abortion that his her right to do so. All of these anti-abortionists are zealous about the rights of the unborn, but when they are born they couldn't care less about them. If you don't believe in abortion then don't get one, but don't impose your moral or religious beliefs on the rest of us!
108
Jenna King is a strong, heroic person. It took a lot of strength to stand up to her father and equally so to go public and face the mob in the legislature.
167
@Joel Sanders
She has basically legislated that women may not enjoy equal protection under the law. Courageous? Methinks not. This is tantamount to bringing back slavery except the main qualifier is gender, not race.
14
@Joel Sanders -- And the loser is always the poor women, who can not afford to travel somewhere else to get the abortion they need because they can not financially or emotionally support a baby. No consequences for the MAN involved in the rape, or consensual impregnation? Who's going to be forced to take care of this unwanted baby? The state of Alabama? I hope all of the nationally franchised corporations pull out and the number of out-of-state college students take a hard look at this backwards state that has 200,000 to 300,000 people without any medical care and a very high infant mortality rate, as well as one of the highest teen pregnancy rates due to lack of proper sex education and services.
17
How can a fetus be a person? It's a biological entity, yes, but a person?
A person is what happens when that entity emerges from the womb's protection and spends a lifetime interacting with its environs, shaped by encounters of parents, siblings, peers and a world full of wonders and challenges.
16
Yep.
Abbie Hoffman usedta say that among his people, the fetus wasn’t considered viable until it finished medical school.
6
@wihiker
Not too long ago it the best knowledge of development held that a fully formed human was curled up inside a sperm and that life started from inanimate material when the "quickening" occurred in the womb. You'd know the quickening took place by feeling a kick. The fetus wasn't "alive" prior to that. Sperm and egg weren't alive.
We know now that life doesn't "start", that sperm and egg are alive by any informed definition. We know that making a baby is process with many stages. We know that fertilized eggs, zygotes, (what the anti-abortion movement calls babies) don't always implant in the uterine wall and are just passed out with a normal appearing menstrual cycle, no one the wiser.
But the old concepts shaped our common usage vocabulary for development. We still think of "life" as "starting". We can be easily convinced that the Gerber baby is in there, fully formed but small, at the "instant" (it's not an instant) of conception.
5
Remember when Ronald Reagan called the USSR " an evil empire" ? One of the things he recited was the number of abortions each year in Russia. Have we become an evil empire? Abortion should not be considered just another form of birth control-some women have multiples. How about we teach men and women of reproductive age to exercise a modicum of responsibility ? Abortion is not the same as a tonsillectomy . If some states choose to outlaw it- that should be their right. Roe v Wade needs another look.
1
@jack8254, what are your thoughts on personhood and bodily autonomy? It is easy to say people should "exercise a modicum of responsibility", But you can't force people to be "responsible", especially when that definition is subjective. To me, being responsible is using the most effective form of birth control I can afford and obtaining an abortion if I end up with an unwanted pregnancy because I don't want to burden my mind, body, bank account, government, or fellow citizens with a result that no one wanted.
3
@jack8254
Nope. No one in the US in any state has the lawful right to take away the rights of a woman, whether it's because of their mistaken belief of when "life begins", or any other reason. It's written right into our constitution, which is what RvW points out. Read it.
5
@jack8254 How about we do the things that are proven to reduce the abortion rate - education and access to affordable reproductive health services and contraception for all - while not taking away the autonomy of women to make decisions for themselves? If you want to reduce abortions, that's how you do it. Anyone who has any knowledge of pre-Roe days knows that outlawing abortion only leads to limited access with dangerous results for the poor and disenfranchised, while the wealthy will still have safe access with enough money.
5
The same conservatives who advocate for less government involvement in people’s lives are apparently happy to advocate for direct government involvement in a woman’s private healthcare decisions. At the same time, they refuse to expand Medicaid for the underserved, which limits access to prenatal care, including safe options for abortions, these politicians also cut the social safety net (while simultaneously complaining about the ‘welfare state’), and use rare, worst case scenarios as the basis for their flawed reasoning with respect to limiting abortion in their state. All of this amounts to overwhelming evidence that a majority of these mostly white, male politicians know next to nothing about medicine, trauma-informed decision making, evidence-based practices, or a woman’s right to choose. Wealthy, conservative men are probably the least fit to craft policies affecting real medical decision-makers and the female patient’s they serve.
10
I consider myself politically liberal and attempt to be personally non-judgmental, yet I struggle with the abortion issue, and know I'll be decimated for writing this. I never had to make such a decision, but I know people who have, and I still, years later, think and wonder about those lost children and see the effects it has had on the women who had to take that path. I know a young woman who felt pressured to have an abortion, but on the morning of, locked herself in a bathroom and refused to go. This child is now almost eight years old, a veritable light in a dark world, a miracle, a joy, a work of the divine. Why is abortion so common? Why are there not better preventative methods? It is so difficult to watch so much of our political capital spent on this and other "sex-related" issues, while others of utmost, life and death importance, get the short shrift. I sometimes feel the Democratic party has been hijacked. And my heart and head have different "answers" about abortion, unfortunately.
3
@DChastain - I'm an old woman now. Over the past 40 years I've known many women who had abortions, and not one of them regrets it, even decades later. They still know it was the right decision for them at the time. The women who have regrets are those who got pregnant pre-Roe and were coerced into giving the infant up for adoption.
17
@DChastain
We all have roads not taken and outcomes not visited.
In general, my thinking is that if a woman really believes it is not the right time for her to gestate and bear a child, then her instincts are accurate and should be honored.
8
@DChastain, "why are there not better preventative methods?" Because science has not gotten that far yet.
2
I do believe, as Gloria Steinem said (or reportedly repeated what an Irish grandmother cabbie said to her), that if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. I agree wholeheartedly, and I take the sacraments pretty seriously. On the other hand, I think the mistake that many pro-choice advocates and liberals make is to treat the issue with flippancy (see sitcom jokes); denial (CNN guest: "When a woman gets pregnant that's not a human being inside her"); or jubilation (light up the NYC skyline in celebration of unfettered abortion). Most people are kind of in the middle: abortion is not a good thing, but is sometimes the only recourse. I think that if we were to watch a video of a puppy being aborted, there would probably be more tears.
4
@Anonymous - I suspect lighting up the NYC skyline was not helpful. But it's illegal in every state in the country to kill a living or viable newborn. The NY law was for those rare cases where the fetus has been discovered to have such severe fetal anomalies it's expected to die in utero (endangering the mother's life), or to die at or shortly after birth. The previous NY law forced these women to carry the doomed pregnancy to term, regardless of the threat to their health or the emotional damage of knowing they'd give birth just to watch the infant die, or perhaps worse, to watch it suffer for a few days or weeks before dying.
9
When will this immorality in the name of morality end? Where does it say that we men must control women? Where is a sense of decency in Alabama? Certainly not in its government. I have visited 47 of our 50 states , but Alabama has not been one of them nor do I expect it to ever be, especially after this assault on the humanity and intelligence of every woman, there and throughout our nation. For shame, Alabama, not just on those in government but on the people who elected them.
9
The question of when life begins has already been determined by our Creator:
For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
...Your eyes have seen my unformed substance.
Whether a child of rape or unpreparedness, conception is from the Lord. I am proudly a minority on this blog and firmly against abortion. Thank you Jesus for all life, even those who don't know You.
So your "G-d" supports a rapist's right to select the mother of his child by violent felony assault?
15
Thanks for clarifying that despite all the drivel, what this is really about is the few demanding the right to shove their version of Christianity up everybody else’s throat.
Me, I’m sticking with the Bill of Rights. And with the quaint notion that you don’t get to dictate.
20
@JR, it's quite disturbing when I see the words "fear", "fearfully", or "god-fearing" in reference to religion.
The use of fear is to control others.
5
Why is there rarely a mention of the boy or man who impregnates the girls/women? If the sons of these legislators had to have wages garnished for the first eighteen years of life and if they had to be publicly identified would these anti-choice religious conservatives still insist on their draconian control of women’s bodies? They just seem to relish in their punishment of women with their “scarlet letter” mindset.
14
I looked up information about Georgia's bill the other day when their Gov.Kemp was using his own tiresome religious orthodoxy as a political cudgel for women in his state- even those who do not share his beliefs. Maybe he should work to make an orthodox healthcare for those who share this religious requirements and leave women to figure out their own healthcare needs based, on you know, health and care. Maybe he could form a local council of males to address their strange silence about the role of male sperm in all this. It is living material as well and could be made prosecutable I guess.
Anyway, ooking up some stats, I found that Georgia led the nation in maternal deaths in 2016. Maybe Texas has the record now that they drove PP out of West Texas and left a lot of people with no care. Well done, according to them.
If you cannot see the mother as "a person" you surely are making up that you care about humanity the size of a pin head.
So, at a very deep level, this is not about love of humanity or weeping over a fertilized egg - it is about the ego of the Mr. Kemps and the Alabama lady telling themselves that they love abstract humanity- it is only actual people they despise.
16
@Kay Johnson Gov. Kemp used voter suppression aimed at African Americans to get elected. Is there really any surprise that he's now suppressing the rights of women to further his religious agenda?
7
Pro-life is a euphemism for forced birth. That is what they requiring. Forced birth. That is the act they they want to require. You can't enact life. What they want to enact is forcing women to sustain pregnancy and forcing women to go through childbirth. Forced birth.
Forcing women to expend the funds to do so. Forcing women to accept that they are nothing but chattel. Reading what the enablers of forced birth have to say also reveals their belief that forcing women to carry and give birth is also a just punishment for their wicked and wanton ways.
Forcing women into lives they don't want based on ignorance and superstition. And what do these so-called pro-life people say when these lives are mowed down by guns and people call for changes in the way we arm the populace? Well, they will say, guns are constitutionally protected while your right to living children is not. Unless, it seems, they want to force you to bear children as they want to bear arms.
16
If the fetus is a person, why is he or she trapped inside a woman? Surely we have no right to imprison a citizen in this cruel and unusual way. Conservatives should welcome our efforts to free the fetus as soon as a heartbeat is heard.
8
The men who want to turn back the clock to the 8th century - what happens when they instead create a society of women who refuse to marry, refuse to have sex with men, refuse to stay home, refuse to become financially or emotionally dependent on men, refuse to put up with any abuse from men - and instead become highly educated, more politically active, and start businesses at an even greater rate thus becoming much more powerful and wealthy than hey have ever been?
8
Alabama, once again, shows us how utterly out of touch they are with the other 45 non-southern states. Again, white men are telling women how they can live their lives.
Why doesn't the Alabama legislature just outlaw having sex?
No sex = no pregnancy = no need to consider abortions.
6
Sounds like women of reproductive age who want to have control over their own bodies should start moving out of these states that are restricting abortion.
7
Texas has chiseled away at the number of abortion clinics and actually reduced the number of abortions. As a result, there are more children born that would have been aborted. On the other hand, the maternal death rate has gone up and also the infant mortality rate. It would be fair to show "pro-life" protestors the dead mothers and infants that resulted from forcing women to bear children. Perhaps pictures of the bodies of the deceased women or infants could have the names of their father and mother, spouses or significant others, sibling(s), and the children they left behind. "Pro-lifers" need to understand these women and infants were loved and cherished and that they are dead due to misguided "pro-life" politics which really aren't "pro-life" at all. My daughter is a type 1 diabetic who just made her "choice" to have her second child so I know how pregnancies can go awry.
Childbirth is dangerous and women do die. My daughter is my life, and when you go through decades raising your medically fragile child, you will truly understand what "pro-life" is. Make no mistake. There are many millions of women like us who love our daughters fiercely. We will NEVER, EVER let them be endangered as long as we have breath in our bodies. I've gone through a lot worse than the so called "pro-lifes" with my daughter. They are a bump in the road for us moms. I am rabidly "pro life" - my daughter's life.
64
I am fully against abortion unless it is done to protect the life of the mother or in cases of rape and incest. I don’t believe that abortion is right for birth control. I would never want my wife, girlfriend, or others to have one.
With that said, that is my personal belief. I would never believe I have the right to impose my personal beliefs upon any other individual. It is really no different than someone telling me that sex before marriage should be outlawed, that music whose lyrics you don’t like should be banned, that I am only allowed to buy an American car, etc.
So while 45-49 % of the country (in polls) is in support if Trump, I really hope you remember that if you believe a woman has the right to choose, and you voted for Trump, you are the people responsible for this. Roe v. Wade will be reversed pretty soon. You are the ones who should not be complaining about this.
Our democracy, our way of life, our beliefs, our rights, our institutions are crumbling apart around us and we are allowing it to happen.
I am 51 years old. By the time of my death I fear that most of the country I was once proud to be a citizen of will be no different than living in Russia, Iran or North Korea. Maybe it won’t be that bad for me, but I fear for my children and grandchildren. They will never live in the country I was once so proud to be a part of.
63
@David Parchert - If Trump is re-elected, I have not doubt we'll be seeing full-blown fascism in America. We already have a constitutional crisis, with the Administration refusing to comply with House oversight.
14
Alabama is so "up in arms" regarding abortion...they all should take a drive around their state and look at the poverty and dilapidated cities. Why should women suffer in poverty and then have to feed another mouth that they can't afford? Why don't they put all this energy against abortion into bringing Alabama up to the 21st century.
13
Can someone explain to me how, if you believe that life begins at the moment of conception, it is ok to still allow abortion in the instances of rape, incest, mother's welfare, etc? By those beliefs, you're still murdering a child are you not?
5
Flip side of forcing a rape victim of bringing that pregnancy to term:
If a man is convicted of rape, he is castrated.
If The State can control a woman’s reproduction against her will, it has the right to control a man’s against his will.
These should be linked together. See how fast anti-abortion rights effort dwindle.
7
Most of the benighted states passing these misogynist laws have no exceptions for rape or incest.
2
@Justin O there's this magical thing in conservative-land called hypocrisy - through it all things are possible
5
I attended a pro life rally this past Saturday in Times Square and there were over 10,000 people in attendance. Not bad for a liberal city like Manhattan. We were all thrilled to be here where the guests were Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood worker, the actress who played her in the movie, Jeanne Monahan Mancini, president of March for Live, two abortion survivors who were spared from the procedure and a host of others.
The speeches were electrifying and the crowds were very enthusiastic. They came from all over the country and from all walks of life. White, black, Hispanic were crowded together for this very important cause. Men, women, young and old were also present. It was so encouraging to be with like minded pro life people who are fierce about pro life issues.
The highlight of the event was a real-life ultrasound sonogram of a baby in the mother's womb that was conducted inside a van. This was the first time for some to ever see a baby in the womb life or on a screen. It was thrilling and everyone was in awe. You did not have to convince us life existed within the womb because we saw it first hand.
When you see this many people attend a pro life rally, you know the message is finally getting out that life does exist within the mother's womb. These people are the ones who have made a difference in spreading the pro life message and are active in the movement. They truly believe that a baby's life is important at all stages of development.
3
@KMW- Are you Pro Life or Anti Choice? I am both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice.
12
@KMW - and a woman's life isn't. PS, since you're so fascinated by science, here are the scientific definitions: it's an embryo and then a fetus until it's born; it is a baby afterward, not before.
15
The people at the rally? Wonder how concerned they are about:
desperately poor children;
hungry children;
neglected children;
sick children;
physically abused children;
sexually abused children;
homeless children;
children languishing in foster care;
children regarded as property;
children deprived of an education;
children exposed to toxins;
children who are victims of child pornography;
children who are self-harming, or considering suicide?
21
If they pass this, I would encourage all pro-choice Americans to boycott Alabama as a police state and help create a new Underground Railroad to transport women across state lines to places that don’t require girls and women to provide their wombs for fetuses of men who criminally impregnate them or abandon them to deal with their pregnancy without emotional or financial support.
These men should face large fines based on their share of the cost of raising a child through graduation from higher education.
46
In the 1950s Alabama was notorious as possibly the most backward state in the Union in viciously denying civil rights to African-Americans. It took a concerted, years-long struggle, with the help of outside forces including the federal government, to change that. Now, instead, Alabama may choose to viciously repress the rights of women. and, sadly, the current federal government will likely applaud. Old habits die hard; some things (and states) never really change.
35
The elephant in the room isn't the Republican Party, nor Roe v. Wade, it isn't the unborn baby without a voice or choice in whether she lives or dies. It isn't even the ghosts of millions of babies who have been violently exterminated in America since Roe V. Wade made abortion "legal." (See the movie UNPLANNED for evidence of the violence involved in abortion.) No, the problem is violence. Violence perpetrated by humans on other humans is the most destructive force in America. In the U.S., abortion violence alone takes more lives than the leading health disorders--heart disease or cancer.
A ubiquitous form of violence hides behind a seemingly benign facade known as "the rule of law." It's the use of government force to achieve objectives, some good, others not so much. The problem is violence never occurs in a vacuum. It always has consequences, often seemingly unrelated to the violence that precipitated further violence.
Government--the rule of law--is a violent human construct. If abortion is made a crime, as proposed in Alabama, government violence will be used against the woman and the doctor. And like abortion violence against a baby, government violence against an expectant mother or her doctor will not occur in a vacuum. It will, like all violence, beget more of the same.
There's a better way. Today, a group, "40 Days For Life," peacefully protests at abortion clinics relying only on prayer while offering help to prospective abortion patients. It's working.
2
@Ned Netterville - "Violence perpetrated by humans on other humans is the most destructive force in America."
Unless it is rape or forced sex and its consequences. Then the violence is not only legitimate but forced birth legitimizes it and grants the rapists rights.
"abortion violence" only exists where abortion is outlawed perpetrated on women who cannot get a medical procedure.
6
@Ned Netterville
I am sorry, but it is the "pro life" side that actually has killed innocent HUMAN beings. Eric Rudolph ring a bell? As for that ridiculous movie, it is total propaganda. It is the pro lifers who stand outside clinics and film women, call them names and try to destroy their lives. "Pro life" (and I use that term as a pejorative) have no moral leg to stand on.
11
@Ned Netterville
"It isn't even the ghosts of millions of babies who have been violently exterminated in America since Roe V. Wade made abortion "legal." (See the movie UNPLANNED for evidence of the violence involved in abortion.) "
Lol, I always love when anti-choicers cry and whine about "abortion violence." Dude, it's a medical procedure happening inside of someone's internal organ. How "violent" can it be?
The Unplanned fairy-tale is hysterical... a fantasy in which anti-choicers assume that an insensate fetus can perceive and react to danger in ways that newborn babies can't.
12
Repubs actually don't give a darn about "life" and about babies after they've been born. If they did, they would, as many here have pointed out, advance prenatal care funding, day care funding, early child development support and better family maternity leave policies. Simply, they have discovered that abortion is a hot button issue for the religious rubes that will keep this sizable constituency voting reliably republican as long as they stay sufficiently stirred up.
55
@Tumor boy the states with the harshest abortion restrictions, have almost zip when it comes to social services to help out woman and children.
At best, the Anti Choice are meddlesome and cheap. They don't care about babies and/or moms. Okay no abortions, but get off your righteous behinds and do something with that tire fire called education, social services and health care, Alabama.
I figure if the services are garbage and people are barely illiterate with limited life exposure beyond their state, they keep voting for the messes that run their government. Actually, that's a great way to keep the status quo going.
6
Aside from my views on Alabama as "America's Cesspool", I've always viewed abortion as a complex and difficult issue. I'm pro-choice by a thin margin only because I don't believe a woman's body should be used as a "vessel" that the state should be allowed to control. However, I also believe that today's technology allows a fetus becomes viable at early stages in a pregnancy and, if a beating heart doesn't signify life, then what DOES it signify? My PROBLEM with these restrictive laws coming out of these restrictive states is that they claim to care about the "unborn child" and yet are perfectly happy to allow a child to be born into abject poverty, often burdening a single unwed mother who alone has to care for a child that she is either incapable financially or emotionally of caring for, with almost NO support from the state. THIS is the hypocrisy that undercuts whatever possible justification the pro-life movement might have. They claim to worry about an unborn child and yet once born are happy to allow it to wallow in squalor without the proper care that a newborn should have as a birthright. WHAT does Alabama offer unwed, poor women in terms of health care, food assistance, day care and so on? Children are born into poverty and almost never leave a life of poverty - is THAT the way to demonstrate that these legislators cherish all life? Provide more help to these poor women and fewer abortions would result WITHOUT the need to legislate them into illegality.
22
@ManhattanWilliam
Well said! Mind blowing that these people claim to be 'pro-life'. They are ridiculous.
6
Is a fetus a "person?" Is it an "unborn baby" or not?
That is what the disagreement is really about. Everything else comes back to that. Take the example of Jenna King to illustrate that.
If the fetus is not a person, then it is entirely reasonable to halt a pregnancy until a better time in the mother's life. Her baby born later when she was ready is the proof of it for this view.
If the fetus was a person, was an unborn baby, then halting the pregnancy was a loss of a person's life, and a better paced life for mother and a good life for a later baby do not make up for the killing.
The Roe v. Wade case actually left that question open. It drew a line, and said before that line the fetus is not a person, not an unborn baby, because it is not viable.
Then Roe hedged about life or not life in restricting but not eliminating later abortions. It used what amounts to a balance of evils approach, risk to one life vs loss of the other.
Roe could be "interpreted" either to make the fetus a life after some line, or to flatly reject that idea. It would not be inconsistent so much as explanatory of the line previously used.
Abortion foes don't want any good word about Roe. Choice proponents don't want any suggestion that Roe is other than what they want it to be. It is however a very mixed decision, and there is a lot of potential within it for trouble to either side.
1
@Mark Thomason
Wrong. The debate is not entirely about whether the fetus is a person or "unborn baby". You're forgetting that women have autonomy over their bodies and lives and the right to determine who uses their bodies, for what purpose, and when.
Women have the right to protect their lives and health. Women should not be forced to take on medical risks, especially for the sole benefit of another. We do not compel any other person to allow someone to use his or her body or take on a medical risk for the benefit of another under any circumstances.
Women are not tupperwear containers for babies. The fetus isn't simply hanging out in her uterus, getting a little bigger every day. It's not just inside her-- it's attached to her and she is building it with her body. Gestation impacts almost every part of a woman's physiology and requires a tremendous amount of work from her.
16
@Mark Thomason
Colorado voters have rejected the extremist "personhood" dogma 3 times.
Of course a fertilized egg is a potential human being. And the sperm that made it fertilized is also living material. And women are capable of healthcare choices that are not to be made subject to the State or a particular religious dogma. Women are not the problem here.
That this issue has been made political by the GOP and religious fundamentalists for perpetual fundraising by extremists is the issue. We deal with difficult issues all the time- pregnancy, end of life choices for our parents, etc.
Letting the black and white thinking of demagogues chart healthcare is as dangerous in America as it is in countries like Saudi Arabia. Women are citizens.
6
@C's Daughter, EXACTLY. Fetal personhood isn't the issue here. Equal protection under the law for the woman is what's at stake.
6
"Critics of the Alabama proposal have promised litigation if Governor Ivey signs it into law, regardless of the potential legal risks of revisiting the issue in the courts. Planned Parenthood has said it intends to sue to block the legislation immediately, on the ground that it would unlawfully restrict access to abortion, a right that has been reaffirmed by the courts since Roe."
Don't they realize that that is exactly what the abortion opponents want them to do -- put them in the court system on a pipeline to the Supreme Court?
1
@Charlesbalpha And what would be the alternative? Allow the law to stand unchallenged?
4
We live in a country where some people (not kidding) believe that a powerful male having his way with and impregnating a girl without her consent is ... divine. And that women (not kidding) caused all the evil in the world and so must be punished and controlled. (Eve as a sequel to Pandora).
People cherry-pick their religious beliefs and say that goodness, kindness, etc etc etc is the foundation of their religious beliefs, and pretend that what is underneath those palliatives - a belief system that champions unquestionable male superiority as synonymous with morality - doesn’t exist and drive everything in their “moral” code.
Eve must be punished and controlled, because her decision ruined everything (so she cannot be trusted to make decisions). The religions in this country believe they have the right to claim ownership of basic humanness (kindness, empathy, good deeds) which humans had way before some old men stitched together centuries of accumulated myths to rationalize their authority. Don’t forget, women are not even allowed to claim motherhood, because the first mother of humankind was a male (seriously, I do not jest) deity who gave birth to a man who then gave birth to woman (again, I do not jest). Taking credit for (creator) birth and controlling birth is the point. If the definition of a creator deity is creating the first human as a divine act, how warped are we to believe that deity is ....wait for it... male.
Womb envy. If you cannot create, control.
44
@Other. And yet they (the hypocritical political leaders and followers who cloak themselves in religion) still “persist” (see Mitch McConnell’s turn-of-phrase). They are obviously hoping for s victory in the new Supreme Court. It can only get worse if RBG’s health doesn’t hold up and — most important — the most hypocritical hypocrites of all, the amoral leader of our nation and great friend of the evangelicals, gets re-elected.
6
It's time to start boycotting these places. This includes buying cars made in Alabama. Also, the University of Alabama is recruiting out of state students. Are they going to make students from blue states aware of their laws?
22
One more reason to be deeply ashamed of the state in which I live. I lived through the days of abortion being illegal, before Roe vs. Wade. Back then some girls made "a trip to New Orleans". We all knew what it meant. Regardless of the attack on women's right to determine their own lives, I have questions. Who is going to pay for the pre-natal care for women forced to continue pregnancies they don't want? Who is going to pay for the deliveries? Who is going to pay for neonatal care if it is needed? Who is going to pay for the food, shelter, and education of these children? Not this bunch. They could care less.
30
@KASPA - Statistics show that about 1/3 of unwanted children end up spending their adult lives in the US prison system. We all pay for that as well.
6
Women need to take a page from the gay rights movement; start talking about why they had an abortion. Just as with gay rights, once people starting opening up about it, nearly every family discovered - and accepted - their brother, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle, etc. who identified themselves as such.
And one cannot talk about abortion without including a conversation about poverty. The majority of families living in poverty are single women with children. And the vast majority of women choose abortion for economic reasons - and that's a truly difficult decision to make. Alabama is the poster child for poverty and it's ugly consequences; poorly educated children (and future workforce), more reliance on government assistance and increase healthcare problems.
Again, let's be clear, this movement isn't about "protecting the fetus" it's about eroding women's rights and trying to score points with God. Everyone, including men, should be terrified at what is happening; if these small-minded people are successful at pushing their dangerous agenda, whose rights are next on the chopping block? Voter rights, worker's rights, non-Christian religious rights, etc.
33
Another good reason to not live in Alabama.
25
I was 42 when I got pregnant completely unexpectedly after having been infertile for many years. I was in no position to bring another child into the world. I was very grateful to live in New York with a choice of providers and good insurance coverage. I am a mother, and a teacher of young children. I love kids and am well aware of the negative consequences when people who shouldn’t have (more) kids go ahead and have them.
35
"Pro life conservatives are obsessed with the unborn from conception to nine months. After that they don't want to know about you." - George Carlin
43
How many laws exist against a man's body ?
ZERO!
161
@cp
Exactly. It is a criminal act to abandon a living child, so when will men in Alabama start being jailed for abandoning their fetuses? If we’re going to start treating an embryo as a human being, then it needs to be just as much of a crime for men to abandon them as it is for women to abort them.
21
@cp
Not exactly. Men are required to register for the Selective Service. At age 18. By law.
2
@irene
But can you name one law as invasive regarding the rights of men to control what happens to their body medically?
You can't.
Only women are subject to this level of control.
21
I lived in NYC during the late 60's and it was common to see a young woman crying with her mother to get an abortion as NY was then the only place in the USA to get a safe and legal abortion. When walking around Central Park on Saturdays, you would see young women waiting for the time of their abortion to take place on the west side of Manhattan.
Later years when selling medical systems in the Midwest, I would see crowds of people trying to keep young women from getting an abortion at hospitals by forming a chain of people to keep them from getting to a hospital. In Lake Geneva WI, where I lived there were awful people with huge color pictures of aborted fetuses shoving into peoples faces. They parked their rattle trap buses in a city lot and some locals having enough used K-Bars to destroy all their bus tires. Finally they no longer bothered us.
Yes the south is the bible belt and on Sunday mornings, the Baptist Churches have troopers directing traffic. I quit going to church when I told my mother that listening to Alice Edwards read our Sunday School lesson when I knew she ran the prostitutes at the local resort hotel. Not been in a church in 65 years and I am an agnostic - we would be better off without the god squad.
28
Once again phony outrage by the phony theocratic right. I personally know of two women, one 17 and the other well into adulthood (catholic and evangelical, respectively) who sought procedures when their respective families discovered the racial identity of the fathers-you guessed it.
Meanwhile no questions authority or common sense when you are lazer focused on a single issue. Who needs clean air or water or even social security when you can keep someone else from making decisions in THEIR best interest.
21
If this law passes (more accurately: when), pro-choice supporters should get ready to provide abortion on demand to any Alabama resident who wants one. If it means transporting the victim (ie. woman who's denied access to family planning services) across state lines to a more progressive state, so be it. Freedom riders for a new generation.
20
@Ned Kelly wow, thank you. Great response, sir.
6
@Ned Kelly - If SCOTUS returns the abortion decision to the states, abortion will immediately become illegal in my red state. And soon after, the rightwing legislature will pass some equivalent of the Fugitive Pregnant Woman Act, where a pregnant woman will have to get permission to leave the state, will have to state her date of return, and will have to present herself to state authorities when she returns to ensure she's still pregnant. If she doesn't return when expected, the state will no doubt demand "extradition" of the pregnant woman from the state to which she has fled.
2
Sitting here in Alabama, I can tell you that eight counties have NO hospitals, that Alabama is last in about everything and I would be hard pressed to think of a worse state to be born in if you wanted a decent future. Why on earth do politicians get to make the call on this? And will the father be identified and asked to pay for all the hardships coming up??
30
The same people who are against abortion are for the death penalty, not to mention the widespread use of firearms ... It makes absolutely no sense, because people are following opportunistic political slogans rather than using their heads and hearts to think about the issues.
15
Wouldn't it be nice if Alabamans cared as much about actual living human beings as they do about unborn fetuses?
The average social security payment for retirees in that state is just over $900. Its work requirement is among the toughest in the country. The state has refused to accept federal funding to increase medicaid under the ACA (235,000 to 300,000 people in Alabama would gain access to Medicaid if the state were to accept federal funding to expand the program), its infant mortality rate is among the highest in the country...and on and on it goes.
Hypocrites.
32
Gotta love the reasoning skills of the conservative mind...
1.) America is all about freedom of action and individual rights.
2.) I have a right to protect myself with firearms. No fact can counter that - it is enshrined in the 2nd Amendment. Bad guys with guns are the problem, not gun laws.
3.) I protect the rights of unborn children - women should not be the final decider of what to do. I should have that right...because of my 'principled views'.
But of course....
1.) America has never been about unfettered freedom. We operate in a highly regulated capital driven society. The rules of that society strongly favor the wealthy and corporations. Doubt it? Pre-existing conditions make no sense when you are paying for health insurance. Why do you have to pay 30% of your gross income to the government when you make less than 6 figures but someone making 8 pays far far less...and the corporate tax rate - after loopholes, the lowest in the world.
2.) A public health fiasco manufactured by gun companies. Yet conservatives not only are blind to it, but actively block research into it...principled? No, hypocritical.
3.) Freedom of choice...by gender. It is more important for the conservative to sleep well at night by abstractly protecting a fetus they know nothing about & have no personal basis for intervention. And subsequently cut social programs...so that the resulting child receives no services & is punished for perceived moral infractions by the mother.
17
Abortion rights depend on a Supreme Court decision. Why didn’t Democrats long ago, pass a national law that allowed free access to abortions in every state for any woman who wanted one at any time? Ask the Presidential candidates.
5
Since Roe v Wade there have been scores if not hundreds of state laws restricting abortion that have been shot down by the courts as unconstitutional. The people passing these laws know they will never take effect, which only makes it easier for them - they can say they're doing something without really doing anything much.
3
Shockingly, these states are also the ones with the highest teen pregnancy rates.
18
And highest infant death rates
15
"The move stands in contrast to the approach of conservatives in some other states, who have argued that a slower, piecemeal approach, chipping away at Roe v. Wade, is more likely to find success in the courts and result in lasting legal curbs to abortion."
It all hedges on expectation of what the Supreme Court will do. If you hate abortionists but you think the Court will uphold Roe vs Wade, you will chip away at the ruling. If you think the court is fed up with Roe vs Wade, you will pass a sweeping law in the expectation that the court will uphold it.
I think it's a bad sign when elected officials have to plan their strategy around what nine unelected judges will do.
And by the way, why the focus on Alabama? The neighboring states of Georgia and Tennessee are considering similar bills. Abortion is very unpopular in this section of the country.
5
Now that the GOP has ended a women’s right to choose they can get on with the business of making government smaller.
Like getting rid of Medicaid, Food Assistance, Women’s and Infant Children’s Assistance, & preschool education funding.
6
there needs to be an amendment to these laws subjecting the fathers to confiscation of their wages to pay child support. because you can bet, once that hits a few of those well-heeled sons of the legislators, these laws will be changed within days.
12
It looks as though the states are lining up for a new civil war. Only this time it's over the enslavement of women.
40
The new season of The Handmaid's Tale will provide inspiration to our latter day resistance movement.
1
I want just ONE man to be impregnated by a rapist.
I want just ONE man to be pregnant for the fifth time.
I want just ONE man to have his health impaired by pregnancy.
At that point, abortion will become a sacrament.
49
In Central America women go to jail for 15-20 years for giving themselves abortions. Or for having miscarriages and stillbirths if their husbands want to get rid of them. It’s very easy to arrest a woman for this, force her to submit to a medical exam for proof and then convict her. It's also not difficult to obtain abortifacients over the counter, or by not acknowledging pregnancy when visiting a doctor for a stomach ache.
But if she’s raped, assaulted, murdered....well whaddaya expect? Police in Honduras don’t respond very quickly to these things....violent crime is everywhere you know... but abortion is a pretty easy collar....
This is who we are now. Sure, no one is talking about arresting women - yet - but that's only because there is a legal presumption that they cannot be trusted, poor dears who "got pregnant" with important and complicated decisions. And of course, no one is talking about the obligation to provide continuing health care to the woman, and to the resulting baby who may be anencephalic or not viable without extreme medical intervention. But oh, yes, there is punishment to mete out.
What if every prescription for viagra was only administered after counseling - "now dear, you know that this can result in pregnancy, what are your intentions for using this drug? Are you aware of unintended consequences? Can you provide for your child and your female partner?" There would be uproar.
This is the death of the Republican party - but the birth of theocracy.
27
@Mac The new law in Georgia, where I live, allows for the prosecution of women even if they leave Georgia to have an abortion in a state where abortion is legal. The woman could be charged with conspiracy to commit murder in those circumstances, as could anyone who assists her. Even miscarriages are subject to investigation. I'm beyond disgusted with the entire Republican party.
24
So, can another person be held liable for fetal demise? Can a pregnant woman’s liability policy be required to pay the estate of a deceased fetus, and its executor/administrator? Who would inherit that, the lawyer?
6
If abortion, and even birth control access, is threatened, then men must step up and have vasectomies. Especially if they are already fathers. It's past time for the abortion conversation to start including a discussion of the responsibility of men to prevent pregnancy. They have escaped any obligation for far too long. No woman gets pregnant without sperm.
117
@Ms. Pea Great point. Although I would like to add that if religion, specifically extreme right Christianity, insists on having its say, it needs to put restrictions on Viagra and its "brothers." I mean, aren't these sexual steroids against the natural law, too? Maybe if thousands of men do not have access to their energy pills, we won't need birth control. Are you listening, Mr. Trump et al.
8
Sometimes I really hate my own state. Because our voters are so brainwashed by Fox News, etc., we are a solidly republican state. The Republican Party decided to enforce solidarity on this issue, capturing its centrist “pro-business” wing. There are many voters, especially evangelical women, who vote religiously on this one issue. They are the most faithful primary voters and the moderate voters are demoralized and gerrymandered into irrelevance. We are stuck with the extreme of the extremes.
This kind of thing, like the Roy Moore debacle, reinforces all the worst stereotypes about Alabama. In my generation, those who could got the heck out of here. I thank the younger generation for speaking out and also for flocking to less misogynistic churches.
If these bills go into effect, the rich white girls will find doctors to do medical D-and-Cs like they did in the old days. Women in poverty won’t have connections and won’t be able to travel out of state and they will suffer the worst consequences. We already have third-world country levels of infant and maternal mortality, with the worst rates in our African-American communities. No, our mostly-white, mostly-male legislators do not really care about the lives of the babies.
37
And how, precisely, are these state planning to care for the children born to mothers who cannot or will not care for them? If they so revere life, then are they going to reestablish strict paternity laws? If a fertilized egg is given the legal protections of a fully formed, viable human child, doesn’t that make its father liable for its support, and hence the mother’s physical, economic, and emotional well-being from the time of conception? After all, the only way to protect the “child” is to protect the mother.
25
There is a significant disconnect between the views of the majority of the country and the cruel misogynists in the Alabama (and other southern) state legislatures. The divide is getting more pronounced and encompasses more than abortion laws. Whether or not everyone wants to acknowledge it, our nation is heading for some major, unavoidable legal, Constitutional, and cultural showdowns that could result in the splitting apart of the U.S. into two or three separate nations. History is not static and there have been uncountable instances of nation states splitting apart for a variety of reasons. It may finally be time to call off the experiment begun in 1776, let the Confederate states wallow in their Bibles, bigotry, and backwardness, and let the rest of us move in a different direction.
22
@Jason Shapiro This is Jeff's wife speaking. Letting go of the south is an old idea and I understand the frustration it derives from. While it would be easy to wash your hands of us, please don't abandon us to our own worst instincts. Decades ago, it took the might of the federal government and the weight of public opinion to bring about meaningful change for African-Americans. Please take a deep breath and keep up the pressure on southern states to prevent women being relegated to a lower caste. For southern legislatures, abortion is only the beginning. Birth control, access to credit, and job discrimination may shortly follow.
7
Well, my grandmother, a life-long defender of Richard Nixon, who lived to be 99 told me one day that women have always had abortions and that in her day, the wealthy white women in her neighborhood traveled just below the Mexican border. She said they were dangerous and needed to be legal. This said from an extremely conservative woman who had lived a life.
28
I just thank goodness that I grew up in the time of Roe v. Wade. As a young woman I knew that I had a choice in the direction of my life. Although I never had to make an abortion choice, I knew it was there.
I will continue to support Planned Parenthood who champion the cause of women's health. They helped me in college to get low cost birth control, so now I give back to them.
I also think about spending my dollars in places that do not support women. Not interested in going to India for instance, and now I Alabama is on that list as well.
Young women, you have to start standing up to these white men who will take away all your rights if they can. But then again, maybe this is the last throes of the reign of white man ? One can only hope!
I am a white woman age 54 and stand with Planned Parenthood.
140
@Celia
I agree with all you said. Where are the young women and men of today? Why aren’t they demonstrating in the streets and demanding their representatives preserve reproductive rights like previous generations of women? They seem so lackadaisical towards a very real threat to all women.
24
@Celia
I am a white woman age 73 and stand with Planned Parenthood.
12
@BMUS
And where is the AMA and other doctor's organizations ? Aren't they supposed to be protecting their members from such threats
as being jailed for performing abortions ?
9
These are the same” lawmakers” who want to curb contraceptive information along with these Draconian measures. Watching the world spin backwards to the Middle Ages is no fun.
27
The underlying picture here is even more underhanded. Under Roe v. Wade, these kinds of laws are unconstitutional and the states know it. What they're doing is goading people to sue them, so they can appeal this all the way to the US Supreme Court, where their right-wing majority friends will finally overturn the dreaded Roe v. Wade once and for all.
The Republican Party- it's about less government and more freedom. As long as you're a straight white male.
32
When the rights of LGBT citizens were being threatened by various states several years ago, many organizations and companies stepped up and threatened boycotts. If I recall correctly, these groups included Apple, Disney, Dow, Wal-Mart, IBM, American Airlines, and the NBA and NFL. These actions caused states to withdraw proposed legislation and back down.
So why all the silence now? Are women's lives and rights not worth defending?
142
For a simple reason. Too many women in these states are actively voting for, and support, their own disenfranchisement on abortion rights.
African Americans and LBGT people did not have a vote or were “voted against” when it came to civil rights. A true example of majority oppression.
These conservative women support abortion restrictions or are ambivalent. Pro choice and left leaning people have to accept this and move on.
10
@Madeline Conant
"So why all the silence now?"
Decades upon decades upon decades upon decades of conditioning.
This from a New York Times article one year ago:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/us/southern-baptist-seminary-leader-removed.html
"A prominent Southern Baptist leader has been removed as president of his seminary after coming under fire for controversial comments to and about women, including advice that women who are abused by their husbands should focus on praying for them, rather than on divorce, and should “be submissive in every way that you can.”
While he is no longer a part of the Southern Baptist Convention, the sentiment is still there. Removing one man will not change this propensity.
"Are women's lives and rights not worth defending?"
If you read the above mentioned article, then I think you will see that the answer is - No.
11
This is horrific. This is enslavement of women, full stop. This is why I will not vote for any male in the Democratic primary. Whoever gets the nomination I will support but I will only vote for a woman in the primary. For too long the personhood of half the U.S. population has been pushed aside and our concerns dismissed as side issues. Liberal males do this just about as often as conservative ones. This type of insidious poison is what happens as a result. Enough.
72
If you choose to vote this way, Trump will be elected in 2020.
5
@Mary A
You're wrong. The most clear-thinking, forward minded candidates vying for the Democratic nomination are women. Most voters are women. There is no sense in denying the voting power of women and there is no logic in saying we need to elect a man for the 400th time to win.
3
If these states really want to limit or eliminate abortions, they need to ensure there is easy, free access to women's reproductive healthcare and education. AND make sure reproductive education is covered in schools for both male and female students. If you don't want to have abortions, then make it easy to prevent unintended pregnancies!
31
@Hootin Annie: Logical indeed; but the antichoice lot is exactly that - antichoice - don't doubt for a second they won't be after banning all contraception also, then what banning education of females, disenfranchising females; I wonder where the misogyny actual ends with this lot. I absolutely believe they do not want females to have choices of any kind. I think banning abortion is just the very small tip of the iceberg. I am not pro-abortion, complete and very manipulative disingenuous misnomer; I am pro-choice and pro-education so to avoid abortion; but they aren't anti-abortion or pro-life - if they were they would care more and focus their energies on children aiready existing and they don't, They are anti-choice. Remember that.
10
For Republicans, "big government" is okay if it's going to dominate women and make them submissive to the mysoginists depriving them of their freedom of choice.
And don't think it's that they are advocating a "right to life" because they certainly don't care about the lives of actual infants.
Take Alabama for instance. Medicaid expansion was denied to the citizens of Alabama. And the infant mortality rate is higher in that state as a result.
Someone should curb the banal hypocrisy of the Republican party.
And that someone happens to be you, so vote.
28
Can we be honest about the anti-abortion movement? Some very small part of the movement cares about the children, the rest want it clear that men, and only men, can carry out the most sacred act: killing. Women face the same issue in the military. I will lay odds there are no women involved in executing prisoners. It is also the basis for toxic masculinity. Killing as the last outpost of manliness. Abortion takes that choice away from men.
19
Why is it so hard for conservatives to check their outrage and look for root causes? Much like their hatred of immigrants, their abortion outrage simply makes them blind to the inherent causes that make people leave their homes or end unplanned pregnancies. But you'll never hear a conservative voice about that.
The fact is, conservatives love "children" until they are born. Then they have not one iota of care for the child or their mother. This is established fact. As soon as a child is born in these states, their aid is cut, their mother is left rudderless, their future is darkened by the lack of support - so heartfelt before birth, and now gone with the wind.
Conservatives would rather spew about "murder" than wonder why women get abortions. They would rather cry about "heartbeats" than investigate ways to make birth and child rearing easier. They would rather throw slings and arrow than sit down and hear a woman's story.
No one ever gets an abortion because it's the easy, simple thing to do. Just as no one leaves their home and walks thousands of miles just because. These two issues - abortion and immigration - are parts of a whole that conservatives simply bury their heads and do not even ask the simple question: why?
Personally, I hope I never have to make either of these decisions. And because I'm a 45 year old white man, I know I never will. But I can empathize with those that do and understand that they do these things not because they want to.
63
As a woman beyond childbearing years I've seen abortion legal and illegal come and go as law. My heart breaks when I remember the stories from my youth of back alley abortions that tried to remedy the dilemma of many desperate young girls. Are women now criminals for one night when they had a moment of hopefully pleasure> Or not pleasure as often is the case. Are men always to be excused? We need to look at abortion as an imperfect choice always.....women don't take it lightly. But it is a choice.
29
These drastic measures by the Alabama State Legislature upset me. As women, regardless of your opinions on abortion, we should always have the right to make decisions about our own bodies. To criminalize these women for making one of the hardest decisions of their life is horrific. And, to only "consider" not criminalizing those who have been victims of incest or rape is infuriating. Outlawing abortion in the state of Alabama would only lead to increased difficulties for poor women and encourage women to make unsafe alternative decisions. I hope the representatives and people of Alabama can come together to realize how much this legislation will send them behind in time and hurt the future of their state and the women in it.
17
Abortion is wrong God will judge all these people doing it . It should not be in our elections. Our founding fathers had said that and that it will divide our nation. It has. This article does say that there will be exceptions like rape, certain medical procedures and a few other reasons. Yet the GOP can get us into the thousand year wars in the Middle East now Trump is going to attack Iran and Venezuela. That is serious anti life behavior that needs to stop. You won’t get to heaven saving one group then destroying humanity with war and coal use.
2
@D.j.j.k. interesting how you lump a woman's right to choose with religion, the Middle East, South America, and the ecology.
I agree with you that abortion should not be a political issue. Let's leave that up to the individual and their personal choice.
17
If the women in these states are anti-choice and wish to disenfranchise themselves, so be it. Liberal states and advocates have to double down and protect the right to choose in their states.
Over time, maybe more Republicans will be open to expanding social services to care for all the eventual poor and unwanted kids.
However, my guess is that this is a strategy to:
1. get more white women bearing white children for adoption to white couples
2. address “demographic” concerns and blunt the perceived impact of Latin American immigration
3. pull more “upwardly mobile” white women who get pregnant before they are ready out of the workforce and into marriages and homemaking.
11
@Practical Thoughts
"If the women in these states are anti-choice and wish to disenfranchise themselves,"
This is just rhetoric. Women who vote against abortion have plenty of choices in their lives and are in no danger of losing the right to vote, which is what "disenfranchise" means.
@Practical Thoughts You "so be it" ignores the fact that millions of women in red states vote against these Neanderthals. Poor women especially will suffer immensely from these new laws.
6
Funny how states that have the worst record with children's health, infant mortality, and maternal maternity are the first ones to run to banning abortion. Maybe if they actually concentrated on providing comprehensive health care to their residents, they would save more children.
And if abortion is murder, then why are their exceptions ? Does a child formed by rape or incest make it any less of a child ?
Maybe the states should stop trying force their perverse morality on their residents and focus more on providing services to help those most in need.
87
@Sikorsky "And if abortion is murder, then why are their exceptions ? Does a child formed by rape or incest make it any less of a child ? "
No, but it does mean that the mother didn't "consent" to it being there, to a sufficiently strong degree that the pro-lifers can't say "well, she made that choice and has to live with it".
More importantly: I don't think conservatives would have enough popular support to pass this law if they didn't include those exceptions.
I don't agree with them either way, but that's the reasoning.
2
Out lawing abortion at the state level will only impose restrictions on poor women who cannot afford to travel to other states, or even other countries, to obtain an abortion. This is another right wing effort against women's reproductive rights and target's poor women. Women seeking abortions has been around since biblical times and making abortion illegal will only again put desperate poor women at risk for botched abortions. These religious right wing voters a re the same voters who do not support the social safety net to support unwanted and neglected children. Their hypocrisy knows no limits. Should this issue go to the Supreme Court they need to take a firm stand against these types of laws.
22
It's time to accept that Alabama, and Georgia, and other southern states are now oppressive Christian theocracies, and then decide whether or not we want to do business with those theocratic territories. I know that I won't. Join me.
Let's fight to defund them. Call your legislators, tell them to include riders in Federal program bills that take exclude states who don't offer full rights to women.
Tell the leaders of your company not to do business, or employee people, in states that don't offer full rights to women.
Trust me, theocrats care a lot more about money than they do babies.
112
@Joe B
“It's time to accept that Alabama, and Georgia, and other southern states are now oppressive Christian theocracies”
I’m a northerner living in Tennessee, you hit the nail on the head. The first question I’m asked when introduced to someone new is, “who is your church family?” It’s a screening question meant to elicit if I’m 1. Christian and 2. which church I attend. The wrong answer got me shunned many times. After playing this game way too often I finally started responding, “I’m a heathen.” Unfortunately, this backfired with one woman, she keeps trying to save me.
These states are using their power to force the beliefs of a few on all the people. They are ignoring our Constitutional right to a separation of church and state.
55
@BMUS
Don't forget, many of these people don't believe in separation of church and state.
17
@Loren Grimes
More correctly they don’t believe in the separation of their religion from controlling the state. While striving to impose their Christian beliefs on everyone these same people are demonstrating in front of mosques and fear mongering about Muslims and sharia law. They don’t see the irony of their position. Religious extremists are all the same, my beliefs are right while your beliefs are wrong.
17
Unlike African Americans who were deprived of their civil rights without representation, women in these conservative states are as supportive of restricting abortion as the evangelical men.
Let them go their way if that’s the case. It’s an uphill battle that is draining the political discourse. The people from conservative states do not believe in abortion rights. Let them deal with the consequences.
As long as the more liberal states can continue to exercise a women’s right to choose, I would suggest pouring resources into ensuring access there.
It will be good to get this issue resolved nationally. So many Republicans are single issue voters (e.g Catholics) on this issue. Perhaps with this resolved, Democrats can make headway with these single issue voters on issues of common interest.
9
@Practical Thoughts
I believe this issue WAS resolved nationally with Roe. Alabama seeks to overturn Roe by forcing their take on the issue up to the Supreme Court.
6
The issue was hardly resolved in the public discourse. With that said -
The Supreme Court is now in the Conservative favor for the next three or four decades. Once these cases get their it will be a fait accompli.
The Democratic Party messed up in 2016.
5
An interesting point, if Jenna King's father was a Catholic priest - he would have been excommunicated for even taking his daughter to an abortion clinic (and yes, it is possible for a Catholic priest be married and have children if he started out as an Anglican priest).
I question whether the GOP really wants the abortion issue to go away, because it's an automatic vote generator for them. To that end I point to Tim Murphy, who resigned after it became public that he wanted his mistress to have an abortion when they thought she was pregnant. Also consider Scott DesJarlais who pressured his mistress to have an abortion, and his wife to have two abortions. It makes the case that being against abortion is great when running for office, but if your mistress or wife is pregnant - well in those cases, abortion is just fine.
27
I'm absolutely infuriated by this bill, as well as the one that was signed into law by the governor of my state yesterday that practically criminalizes even thinking about abortion. And I'm beyond infuriated that we only talk about abortion. Where are the bills providing funding and guidelines for comprehensive sex education or family planning or birth control or child care, etc.? This is NOT pro-life at all.
38
@Laurie Black It's not pro-life, it's pro-man. Sex education, family planning, birth control, child care AND abortion all have a common component that I'm beginning to suspect is the reason why conservatives are focused on abortion: they all give women power over their bodies, financial futures, and feelings of self worth. So much more convenient to return women to the days of being trapped in a marriage because they have children and can't support them outside of their marriages. And so much easier to focus on the "evil" of abortion than be honest about wanting the world to go back to the days before feminism told women that they had choices in life. If I had a dollar for every woman under 25 with nothing more than a high school education who has a child or two here in Alabama, I'd be a billionaire. The worst part for me is that so many conservative women fail to see that they are sowing the seeds of their own daughters' destruction and dooming them to financial insecurity for a lifetime. I tell everyone who asks that my college-educated 25-year-old daughter will be ready to have a child when SHE (not her boyfriend) has a job and a career that can support her and a future family.
16
These laws aiming to control women's birth control and women's pregnancies are all about power - not rights. The one great power that women have that men don't is to bear new human life in their bodies.
But remember that it is a self-sacrificial power - women submit to a parasitic presence in their bodies for 9 months, sustaining the foetus at a cost to their own substance and at a known risk to their health and sometimes life itself. Men don't share those costs, and never can. Therefore they should not have the power to demand that a woman bear them.
31
@janebrenda
If men could become pregnant, abortion would be a Sacrament!
5
Trump believes he got the court stacked to pull off a repeal. And Susan Collins of Maine was fooled when she believed Brent Kavanaugh.
13
@Wayne Collins wasn't fooled. She chose to turn a blind eye to what Kavanaugh represented. The voters of Maine will remember in 2020.
33
@Wayne - Collins plays a moderate on TV. She has "concerns," and then after garnering all kinds of air time, inevitably finds that her "concerns" have been answered, and decides that she can vote with her party. Every time. I don't know why the media keeps falling for it.
Is any man ever going to be held responsible, to hold themselves responsible for this state of affairs, save doctors?
Ever?
Legislators don't mention it. News coverage, commenters, men in their casual day-to-day. Who me? Unprotected sex? Unwanted pregnancy? Yes. YOU.
Condoms. Can we start with that?
Banning abortion is about men exerting their right to do nothing at all and punish women for everything that follows.
The entire pro-life excuse has nothing to do with life. It's about men and feelings of control.
75
I have no issue with outlawing abortion, IF-men are held EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE for the child EVEN if the mother and father are not married. 28% of income for child support to a working single mother from the father is not enough. ALSO, all the unwanted orphans and children who will be born and not so much wanted will need state programs to support them. But oh, no-this is not how it is. Protect them in the womb, then let them figure it out on their own when they are born into a toxic situation beyond their control. I hate the thought of abortion BUT until every orphan is adopted and there is no more need for foster homes I can't abide by this at all. But as usual, the hypocrites of the right just can't help themselves at all. May their souls find redemption in the after life because here on Earth, they are the Devil incarnate.
13
We should redirect resources from DEA to form a group of law enforcement that does nothing else but hunt down men who are not financially upholding their responsibilities for their children and bring them to account.
As you said, regardless of the man’s relationship with the mother.
Men who are not providing money or meaningful time with their children are the biggest threat to the long term health of the country.
7
@Practical Thoughts - In my red, red state, the rightwing legislature has an answer for this: They privatized Child Support Enforcement, cut the staff in half and slashed salaries while they were at it. I have a relative who works for CSE, and she told us the other day they had 69 callers on hold. In other words, make it almost impossible to collect child support in order to protect those poor men who shouldn't have to give up a penny of their income to support the children they fathered. SMH
1
These states never heard of Roe v. Wade?
Or are they taking their chances that their case will reach a newly-conservative Supreme Court which might overrule Roe?
5
@MIKEinNYC Exactly.
3
@MIKEinNYC Read the article...that's precisely why they are passing these bills. They want to challenge R v W in the Supreme Court because they feel like they can finally succeed in seeing it overturned.
5
What if the foetus has a defect that affects/would affect its physical and mental development before/after birth? Is abortion allowed in that case?
5
@Varsha T - According to most of these new laws, no. That's a "precious" child they are proud to sentence to a short and pain-filled life, or a life as a vegetable, not to mention the fate of the parents sentenced to dire poverty and emotional distress to care for that child.
Businesses, obstetricians, gynecologists, and hospitals will keep the state of Alabama off any and all future location planning lists. This legislature is out of control for the female gender, and very, very dangerous for the lives of Alabama girls and women. Birth control will be outlawed next; while Alabama hospitals will be ensconced in lawsuits and fear, after every miscarriage, or deadly pregnancy. All Alabama reproductive healthcare is now considered a criminal undertaking, to be viewed with legal suspicion. New physicians should not practice in Alabama for any reason. The state is clearly thrilled to treat girls, women, and their doctors, as sub-human entities.
41
Once again we will get hundreds of posts from the left trying to avoid any responsibility whatsoever for their actions, and demanding responsibility on the part of others. The woman? No responsibility whatsoever. The man? Oh my god, how dare he! Before birth: the woman has no response whatsoever. After birth? Why doesn’t society pay for her child’s food, housing, health care, education.
“Women’s rights, women’s rights!”, everyone will shout. With rights come responsibility. And the left wants and expects the woman to have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever. They demand all of the rights and absolutely none of the responsibility. That’s what this boils down to.
And as a man, I have no rights. None. If I want the child to be born, “too bad!”, they will say. Now, if I DON’T want the baby to be born, “too bad!”, they will say. They will enforce my responsibility through a court of law. (And mind you, I feel both parties should carry 100% responsibility).
So, to summarize the expectations of the left:
The woman? All the rights, absolutely none of the responsibility.
The man? NONE of the rights, all of the responsibility.
Society? Pay for everything for someone else’s choices.
The baby? Let’s not talk about that. It’s not even human life.
And we wonder why this world is like it is, when we can’t even acknowledge, much less protect, defenseless human life. And everyone else is responsible for your choices.
3
This isn’t about a right to life. It is about a right to life INSIDE the body of another human. Until men are forced to house homeless people in their buildings, you shouldn’t force women to house homeless people inside their bodies. Men aren’t even required to give blood to save a life, even though blood donation has FAR less risk than pregnancy, in which the woman’s life is at risk - a risk that increases every day the pregnancy continues. As long as women are forced to donate uterine space for others, women will die from it, against their will.
36
@Mike
It is the lack of responsibility that got us Trump. I agree.
6
@Mike
So it's not about life but behavior. If you get pregnant by non consensual sex you can have an abortion but if it's consensual, you lose your rights to decide what to do with your body. And using you argument, we should ban smoking, drinking, eating unhealthy foods, driving over 20 mph, possessing guns, skydiving, rock climbing, bumjee jumping (is that still a thing), etc. since if someone gets hurt, then society has to pay for it.
11
It’s all about controlling other people for some of those anti-abortion legislators. That’s what floats their boat and makes them feel powerful.
13
@Tolerance First
controlling women actually.... those men appear to be quite afraid of powerful women... barefoot and pregnant goes way back
10
In this proposed legislation, Alabama should include a requirement that all sperm producers register their DNA. They must not be denied the responsibility and opportunity to fully participate in the sanctity of life.
21
@Kathy Drago
I love this idea! The perfect response to the anti-choice movement.
1
I see only Alabama men, who can never know the experience of a crisis pregnancy, leading this fight. Why such judgment?
My theory is they crave feelings of moral superiority, without doing anything but judging women over situations they never will face themselves.
12
@CinnamonGirl - Actually, there are a LOT of women in the AL legislature who support and champion bills like this.
To be clear about this, the prospective new law is less the product of the whole Alabama legislature and more, much more, the product of anti-abortion fanatics plus the Alabama Republican Party. Alabama Republicans show about as much disdain for women and their needs and desires as Jenna King's Southern Baptist preacher father, but with even more disgust and even less compassion.
19
Just do it already. Make it illegal, like it used to be. I remember those days well. There will be abortions in back alleys on kitchen tables. There will be trips to foreign countries where abortion is legal if you have the means. There will be D&Cs in your local hospital for the wealthy and well connected. And there will be prosecutions of women, and sometimes doctors, like there used to be. And, just like always, one in four woman will have an abortion in her lifetime. Just like it always was and like it will always be.
54
How is a child conceived by rape or incest any less of a child?
Why the exception?
If you are going to enact laws to outlaw abortion they should be applied across the board. Woman are no more than incubators according to the GOP and their evangelical voters. Might as well mark each woman's uterus with the stamp "property of the state".
21
Given Alabama's history and culture, the exception to rape was no doubt included in case a black man raped a white woman.
They may detest abortion, but the idea of race mixing is far worse for many of the white establishment in the second most backward state in the nation (watch out Mississippi, you title is being threatened).
36
Of course, the politicians and their families will always be able to afford to travel to a place where abortions are safe and legal. This is a law that persecutes only low-income women, mostly minorities, costs nothing and gets votes -- a Republican's dream!
20
Men can only have children if a woman provides the opportunity. This drive to bear children is at the heart of this push to control women's bodies through anti- abortion legislation.
The proof of this is in the glaring lack of interest these legislators' have (not) in child and maternal health, poverty, safety issues of schools or quality education.
20
In 1961, upon entering my new dorm as a college freshman, I encountered medics transporting a young women to a waiting ambulance. She had tried to end a pregnancy with knitting needles. Is this archaic past really we are headed?
52
The unbelievable is listening to the pro choice on here commenting how this is akin to bringing back slavery, the offense that statements like that bring is brushed aside because the narrative is that the woman's choice is more important than the future life that is killed by an abortion. Not only is that insane but it's atrocious as a society that has so many ways to keep from becoming pregnant we still use this as a contraceptive. Religious beliefs or not science is proving more and more that closer to conception the embryo is more of a child than we once believed. It amazes me how many dismiss these findings in order to preserve some horrible choice. What also completely perplexes me is that to find life in outer space we need but a single cell organism to declare we are not alone ,yet the embryo at first inception is a multi cell organism that barbarically we do not consider life. So logically the cell in space would have more rights than a human embryo. We should be so proud
3
@Andrea C Maietta Contraception fails sometimes. And berating people for not using it makes clear that the real agenda here is punishing women - and only women - for sex outside of marriage. That's it. If "life" were the priority here, children in Georgia, Alabama, and other red states would always have food, health care, and a decent education. I live in Georgia, and all I have to do is look around to see that conservatives are completely unconcerned about actual children - you know, the ones who've already been born - especially if they're poor and people of color.
9
@Andrea C Maietta
Well, you do understand that forced reproduction was part and parcel of the institution of slavery, right?
Forcing a woman to gestate and go through labor and delivery is very much forced servitude. If you don't like it, maybe you should reevaluate your position on forcing women to give birth against their wills.
"..the narrative is that the woman's choice is more important than the future life that is killed by an abortion. "
But it is, though. I do not have to let anyone use my body if I don't want to. I don't have to donate organs or blood to anyone--- not even my born child. Because legally, morally, and ethically, we do not compel bodily donation. We prioritize individuals' rights to bodily autonomy even if someone else will die without access to that person's body.
"It amazes me how many dismiss these findings in order to preserve some horrible choice."
It amazes me that you feel it is acceptable to force a woman to gestate and give birth. That's completely grotesque to me and evidences a complete hatred and devaluation of women. It's absolutely repugnant.
11
@Andrea C Maietta
Abortions are not contraceptives. Contraceptives prevent pregnancies. Oh, future life takes precedence over an existing woman’s life? Give me a break. Also, since Planned Parenthood locations are closing just where is a poor woman supposed to easily find affordable contraceptives? Then think about this~ and I’m certainly not the first to have thought of this~ outlawing abortion just creates more babies who will eventually die from republican MEN’s wars. Yep! More fodder. So much for life being sacred.
7
Human Rights.
I know that is a foreign concept to the insanity of deep south politics, but we are all born with them. That means a woman's body is her own, that the few cells that she might carry are not the property of some jerk preaching male supremacist hooey from a pulpit, she has human rights to live her life as best she can.
There is no God, there was no historical Jesus, so listening to the male supremacist politicians and preachers is like listening to people talk of Zeus living on Mt. Olympus, frightening that they want to manipulate people with nonsense.
Obviously, if Trump stays in office for a second term, Roe V. Wade is toast.
Take away the human rights of one person, you take away the concept for us all.
Hugh
21
Women of Alabama. There is a remedy. Vote them out! These are your elected officials, not mine.
39
Amazing how some states want to do everything they can to make sure better educated people stay away or move out. Good luck with that Alabama!
46
If these folks would only show the same fervor in holding fathers responsible (financially and otherwise) for unwanted pregnancies...
25
Pretty soon, women in Alabama will vote to deny themselves the right to vote. Why not just bring back 19th century laws and be done with it?
70
The GOP’s War on Women seems to be going better than the War on Iran, N. Korea, and Afghanistan.
23
Just what Alabama needs is more children that they will not help the mother or child support. Why does the father get off Scott free? Children should come into a world where they are loved and supported, if you want to save children, look around your town and you will find mothers and children struggle to make it as the state fights to cuts what little support they give. God will bless WHEN you take care of the poor and people who can not take care of them selves.
Look at the root cause of this problem, iinstead of looking to blame the mothers and the babies. Where are the fathers?
18
So in this Alabama Senate bill if a woman has an ectopic pregnancy the state says she should die rather than have her pregnancy terminated. Capital punishment is legal in Alabama and there are 191 people on death row. A pregnant woman’s life means nothing to Republicans in “pro-life” death penalty Alabama. These evangelicals should pray on this one.
36
@ScottC : they did pray on this and God told them exactly what they wanted to hear.
25
Conservatives want to provoke a Supreme Court challenge. They believe now that Kennedy has been replaced, the abortion issue will be decided in their favor. They may be right.
12
Three thoughts:
1. The right wing seems to actually think that by making abortion illegal they will "end" abortion in their state and/or nation. What they will do is send women back to coat hangers and back alleys.
2. I find the waiting period and "counseling" idea infuriating for it treats women like children. It suggests that women are so simple minded that they make such a major decision capriciously and, therefore, need the state to slow them down and ask them to really think about it.
3. I am solidly pro-choice. IMO, whether an embryo (earliest stages) or fetus are full persons is a matter of theological debate. That said, IF these folks really believe that the embryo or fetus is an independent person with rights, then it is morally inconsistent to allow any exceptions, even those for rape, incest, or the health of the mother.
56
These bills, in a sense, are window dressing to satisfy the self-righteous. The reality is, if needed, abortions will occur in other states, other countries, or sadly, unsafely.
31
Sickening.
If these Alabama lawmakers were truly “pro-life” they would give every new mother 6 months of paid maternity leave. How about public pre-K childcare and other benefits? How about strict gun laws to protect children at home and in school?
Until these come to pass they’re not pro-life.
90
There are so many factors that enter into a woman's decision to have an abortion. Some are on display in the pictures in the article: rape, not being ready. Yet, others are missing, such as poverty, the mother's health, the medically anticipated health of the newborn if rife with genetic defects. Behind this proposed law is the age old clearing of the table of all such considerations by government acting like only it knows best what is right for a woman, who is already clearly a person and has rights, who is carrying a fetus as part of her own body. The state utterly abrogates the rights of one person, while saying it defends the rights of another. But, since it cannot know the thoughts of the fetus, the only rights the state is defending is its own right to ignore the right of the woman to make a legitimate decision regarding the state of her own body, a decision that is likely never easy, and often in consultation with her own family, doctors and counselors. What arrogance.
39
No shortage of hypocrisy here. Many of those who tout their "reverence for life" are very willing to separate children from parents at our southern border , to keep millions from obtaining medical insurance and to allow military style weapons on our streets and in our schools.
105
@Brian Barrett "These people can't argue that it's wrong to kill babies if they don't agree with these other unrelated moral arguments." The fallacies are strong with this one.
2
This is evil in its worst form. The very idea that the state is somehow authorized to interfere into the health issues (or death issues, for that matter) of any woman (or man) is tantamount to dictatorship, and eventually, slavery.
The Republican party used to be a party in which the government had only the smallest amount of interest in people's private lives. It has turned into a beast boring holes into any and everything we do.
Any person who cannot control their own health and body is a person who has no more choice in this life - over anything.
Shame on those legislators - each and every one.
49
Shame on the voters who put those pols in office!
14
Alabama and other states controlled by the Religious Right seek to impose a theocracy on their citizens. First outlawing and criminalizing abortion (except for those with money, who will be able to quietly get them in Illinois, California, New York, etc.). Undoubtedly they’ll seek to strip gays of their rights. Ultimately is it going to be further restrictions on voting “by the wrong sort”?
With the radical 5 justice majority on the Supreme Court anything is sadly now possible.
38
So the fetus is a person, but the woman is not a person with agency to make decisions about her own life?
The woman is essentially the property of the state?
74
@maggie - The woman presumably gets to be a person again after a 9 month hiatus. Or maybe not.
2
An alternate strategy to reduce the number of abortions might be to make contraception and sex education available to all.
33
@CS
What people don't understand is that you can be both anti-abortion and pro-choice at the same time. Make abortion rare but legal and accessible.
8
Abortion advocates, of course, have an easy fix to the unconstitutional state laws that are being acceded to the by Supreme Court, give up. Let the deep Red states pass whatever bills they want, while the pro choice movement puts their efforts into aiding individuals who need an abortion to get to the Blue states that are still allowing it. Stop wasting money in the state legislators and channel it into private transportation and accommodation elsewhere.
7
@Richard McLaughlin maybe, but how long before Congress responds by passing a law, similar to the Fugitive Slave Act, that makes it illegal to travel to another jurisdiction to obtain an abortion or to aid a woman doing so.
12
@Richard McLaughlin, it's not just deep Red states of the south. It's also OH, my state, very gerrymandered and controlled by the Republican party. I think they are competing with GA and AL to see which state makes it to the Supreme court.
7
@Richard McLaughlin
So then, does the woman never return home? She should be a fugitive for the rest of her life because she wanted CONTROL of her life, the freedom to determine if or when she has a child? Is this what our country is coming to? Better to start national boycotts of any state that has such draconian laws. The only thing the republicans understand is money. Kick them where it counts, have the integrity to not visit any of these states for vacation. Hit them where it hurts.
1
Handmaidens Tale Times for our gender ladies. !!!!!
If you allow these fundamentalists to take away our integrity and ability to make our own life choices then the men doing this will be as bad as living under Taliban rule.
Our election systems south and north are fraudulent weapons against our rights.
I am against abortion but that is my choice alone and I do not place any burden on my “ sisters” to follow my philosophy.
If a woman needed my help to terminate a pregnancy I would help her do just that!!!!
I am a nurse. It was my pre retirement profession and I have “ connection”to other nurses ready and willing to provide what our state governments and our judges are taking from us.
Abortion laws and convictions of women having them is arrived and Nurses and Doctors and Clergy from our mainline denominations must rise up to support our right to chose how our bodies are used and when and where abortion is the choice.
Commenters here today should be sharing information and forming coalitions to protect women in these states.
Let’s do this!!!!!
22
The inmates are running the asylum. And that is the entire country.
24
How very Gilead of Alabama. Time to set up an underground network to help our sisters in crisis
37
If the GOP put as much energy into helping children who have already been born, I would have some respect for them. However, this is all about controlling women; once that "precious baby" is born, these disgusting hypocrites don't care what happens to it.
When my daughter was a senior in high school, she received an unsolicited offer of a full-ride from the University of Alabama due to her test scores. I told her that even if she didn't get into another school (she got into many), there was no way she was going to attend college in Alabama. That is how much I despise the people who live there.
33
God bless the people of Alabama. Lots of children’s lives saved.
2
@Virginia Grandma I wondered if there were any of us left! Lives! We are talking about lives! God bless.
1
All children, everywhere, have already been born. Since Alabama is one of the states with the worst access to healthcare, obviously they care not a whit for actually saving actual children's actual lives.
3
"Detectable heartbeat" is a powerful term in this issue.
Since this is a throwback bill proposed by factions seeking to keep the women of Alabama "barefoot and pregnant", the detection of a heartbeat should not be the responsibility of
obstetricians or practitioners with modern equipment but rather the responsibility of a Senator using an ear trumpet.
He/she should have the focus and pinched expression of one longing for the better old days, in order to hear better...
16
This is a good example of how lawmakers who promote their personal religious beliefs – devoid of any scientific merit – upon their constituents, make government a part of a larger social problem and not a solution for the majority.
If only this sort of energy could be used to promote better, less costly healthcare for all instead, which the people of Alabama certainly don't have!
97
By introducing an exception for rape and incest, the legislature made their true motivations clear. This bill is not about protecting the fetus as a person. It is about controlling the behavior of women. If a fetus is a person, then it doesn’t matter why or how it was conceived. However, by allowing abortion in cases of rape or incest, the hypocrites in Alabama are saying: “a woman can have an abortion if her pregnancy is not her fault”.
This isn’t about protecting babies, it’s about removing freedom.
247
@Rick K, and yet there are many women, like State Representative Terri Collins, at the forefront of the anti abortion movement. I know several women who protest at the local Planned Parenthood clinic. While I kinda sorta get the pro life movement, it boggles my mind that there are lots of women out there who would also restrict contraceptives. See personhood legislation.
14
And if a pregnant woman’s life is in danger - her “right to life” - it’s not protected in this bill - they allow her to die. These religious conservatives are trying to take away our freedom. The 2020 election means everything, more than any other election in my 62 years.
26
@Rick K
Agreed. Clearly, what they are saying is, “Abortion is murder! Unless, of course, I approve of your reason for wanting to get one.”
There is only one good reason for abortion: if the woman does not want to continue the pregnancy. She owes no one an explanation.
31
As always, it amazes me to read these articles about abortion opponents and 90% of the activists who are so eager to ban the procedure are men who will never in their lives have to face the risk of an unwanted pregnancy or a very much wanted pregnancy where the foetus did not develop as nature intended. It's like my own Facebook feed -- where the person who is constantly posting (normally inaccurate) anti-abortion memes is a distant elderly male relative who does not appreciate how misogynistic he appears when he continually posts this stuff.
And don't even get me started on the the Stockholm syndrome women enablers, who never seem to see the hypocrisy when one of their own family members needs to terminate a pregnancy. Somehow that's OK, but it is fine for them to seek to dictate highly personal decisions for everybody else.
129
@Frequent Commenter - It is estimated that 40 to 50 percent of pregnancies in our nation are unplanned. I am astonished that this statistic does not get the attention it deserves. One thing is for certain: the wealthy and privileged who cannot see their pregnancy through for whatever reason always find a way to getting an abortion. Alabama is doing no one a favor and its legislators have found a gross way to accumulate more power and this is a power grab.
11
This article appears on my online version of the New York Times just under an article about a young man who died trying to prevent a shooter from murdering others at his high school. Does anyone else feel the nausea that I feel by these two stories? Why is it that a child's life becomes worthless AFTER birth?
177
@Linda Olaerts-Thomas
A very good question. I pass a car with a "Life Is Precious" bumper sticker almost every day and I always think - yeah, at least until they are born.
22
Since unborn children are considered to be people in these states, and prenatal nutrition is important, will pregnant mothers get more food stamps? What about the other costs associated with these children -- who will pay? Are there really would be adoptive parents for these children?
I've heard that most abortions are performed on married women with children who think they can't afford # 3 or # 4 -- not on unmarried teenagers. A lot of these children would be wanted if family incomes were higher.
30
@Kay Sieverding I propose that if the government is responsible for forcing a woman to give birth, that government becomes responsible for the child and must support it until adulthood. The average cost of raising a child to age 17 is $233,610. Every woman who is forced to give birth should receive this amount from the government to support her child.
14
This issue, like so many, twists reality beyond recognition. This issue ought not be about whether a fetus is a person; it's about competing rights and interests. As long as we acknowledge the rights and interests of a pregnant woman, there will be legal abortions. If and when the US bans abortions, it will mean a pregnant woman is no longer considered a full person, but subservient to another.
My own view is that women themselves are best able to balance the rights and interests a stake, given the brief period of time available for making such a judgment.
91
@JP Thank you for saying this so well.
7
@JP - when they allow for different treatment for rape and incest they are admitting the real issue, It's not about the fetus, it's about the woman and their right to control her body. They acknowledge the woman who has been raped has ben controlled already and it shouldn't happen again. But it's still okay to try to control us in their book.
13
@JP Most of our laws are (or used to be) founded on this idea of individual liberty. One person's liberty ends where another begins.. meaning you should be able to do whatever you want with your body and property unless it impedes on someone else's right to the same. The argument is 100% about whether or not the baby is an individual. If so, then the baby has a right to life and liberty, and anyone else's rights are limited IF they wish to impede on the baby's rights. Infanticide is illegal because we all agree that the child is an individual with rights (even though it could not survive on it's own).
1
Yet another reason to not live, do business with or visit Alabama. Jenna King and Sam Blakely are courageous young women and perfect examples of why each and every woman must be allowed to choose her own path. If the legislators took care of the children already born by assuring healthcare, education and safe housing, I would be more inclined to believe they actually cared about children. Phonies, one and all.
191