Even the right-wing Alabama legislature managed to shock America with its extremist conservatism, overwhelmingly voting to criminalize abortion and to assess Draconian penalties for those who are caught ending pregnancies in the state under almost every circumstance.
The overwhelmingly Republican Senate passed House Bill 314 with a 25-6 vote, which would hammer doctors with a 99-year prison sentence for performing an abortion. Democrats tried to counter the more extreme measures of the bill by attaching an amendment that would allow victims of rape and incest to get abortions. That all but failed with a 21-11 vote, according to the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser.
The female Alabama governor, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, is expected to sign the bill into law, according to Good Morning America.
This comes just a month after Alabama’s neighboring state, Georgia, made it a crime to perform abortions in the state after the first detection of a heartbeat, which comes at about the six-week mark of a pregnancy. Ohio, another red state, has also passed a similar measure.
Therefore, this bill, as one political enthusiast noted, would call for the courts to dole out much more severe penalties for a rape or incest victim to have an abortion, than the perverted pedophile or violent rapist who impregnates the female victims:
Alabama just made abortion’s a felony. From the moment of conception, you can’t have an abortion. It doesn’t matter if you’re raped. You have to have the baby. If you abort? 99 years in prison. That’s more time than the rapist would get. I’m physically sick. This is disgusting.
— Kemi Marie (they/them) (@kemimarie) May 15, 2019
A social media influencer put together a composite of the state representatives who voted for this extremely inflammatory bill. Their demographics will not shock most political and pop culture observers:
https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1128524225709404160
Some political observers were incredulous that the state and its female governor would pass such a wide-sweeping bill:
And now Alabama Governor Kay Ivey — a woman — is going to sign it into law https://t.co/RaGBNFbIw0
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) May 15, 2019
Alabama’s measure brought swift public rebuke from the nation’s most powerful legislators:
This ban is dangerous and exceptionally cruel—and the bill’s authors want to use it to overturn Roe v. Wade. I've lived in that America and let me tell you: We are not going back—not now, not ever. We will fight this. And we will win. https://t.co/WNlr7Ys73q
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 15, 2019
Some of the nation’s most powerful influencers also voiced their opinions:
There is a cold place in hell for the Alabama Senate.
— Andy Cohen (@Andy) May 15, 2019
HB 314 is not only unconstitutional – it's a radical attack on women across Alabama and America. We won't back down when it comes to fully protecting Roe v. Wade, fighting dangerous efforts to roll back reproductive health care and defending a woman’s right to access an abortion.
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) May 15, 2019
