Last week, a new Alabama abortion law was enacted to ban abortions throughout the state, setting the stage for a national debate over a woman’s right to choose.
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Now that the predominately all-male, all-white, Republican-led Alabama Senate has voted nearly unanimously to ignore Roe v. Wade and replace it with their own Alabama abortion law to ban abortions statewide — even in cases of rape or incest — what’s next? By using their personal Christian beliefs as a guide, lawmakers opted to outlaw abortion at every stage of pregnancy and criminalize the procedure by threatening to charge abortion doctors with a felony punishable by up to 99 years in prison.
Is this real life??
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Last week, 25 GOP senators approved the stringent abortion bill. Then, Alabama’s female governor, Kay Ivey, signed the bill into law. Ironically, she tweeted that “every life is precious & that every life is a sacred gift from God,” then allowed a man on Alabama’s death row to be executed just a day later.
Now, Republicans across the country are being parodied for their alleged stance on protecting the life of a child at all costs with this new proposal: if it’s illegal for a woman to have an abortion, then it should be illegal for a man to masturbate.
For the past several days, the ignorance and insensitivity displayed by the authors of the new Alabama abortion law has given birth to protests from coast to coast. However, it was the words of an anonymous woman who put the thoughts and emotions of most Americans into perspective:
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I had an abortion one month after my 13th birthday. I’m not sure how else to write that sentence, but it’s not quite right to say I “had” an abortion. That implies I had choices. It’s more accurate to say it like this: my father, a doctor, raped me from when I was 8 years old to when I was 12 years old. When he got me pregnant at 12, he enlisted one of his colleagues to perform an abortion on me when I was 16 weeks pregnant. That was a whole different kind of violation on my body. I didn’t choose to be raped. I didn’t choose to be a mother or to have an abortion. All of my choices were made by my father and this other man, who was easily convinced that I was a slutty 12-year-old and he was my father’s savior from humiliation. I was just a thing that turned into a problem that had to be solved.
My father was a doctor. His buddy performed the abortion in his office, on a Sunday morning. Nobody was there. Because my father had money and access to abortion technology, my abortion would have happened whether it was legal or not, and nobody would have been prosecuted for it. But this is the most important point–this anti-abortion bullshit isn’t just a war on women. It’s quite specifically a war on poor women.
I can’t tell you what choice I would have made then, if I’d had a choice. I can tell you that I grieved that little soul, who the doctor held up for me to see, so I could “learn my lesson and never let this happen again.” And I can tell you that if I know anything about the universe, it’s this: Life finds a way.
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This anonymous woman perfectly summed up the feelings of most Americans toward the “one-size-fits-all” ban the Alabama abortion law introduced into existence. With the states of Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi and North Dakota attempting to follow in Alabama’s footsteps and pass similar abortion bans, some national Republicans are uncharacteristically calling for a pause.
Guy Benson, a Fox News contributor and the political editor of TownHall.com, tweeted that the Alabama bill went “too far” and was “far outside the mainstream” of public opinion.
Conservative televangelist Pat Roberts agreed, calling the Alabama abortion law “an extreme law” that “goes too far.”
“It’s an extreme law”: Pat Robertson says that Alabama’s anti-abortion law goes too far and will most likely lose at the Supreme Court. pic.twitter.com/lDuteweasq
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) May 15, 2019
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Even Donald Trump weighed in, suggesting that Alabama has gone too far.
As most people know, and for those who would like to know, I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions – Rape, Incest and protecting the Life of the mother – the same position taken by Ronald Reagan. We have come very far in the last two years with 105 wonderful new…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2019
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Is the Alabama abortion law a war on women and the beginning of a national campaign to chip away at Roe v. Wade until a woman’s right to dictate the choices of her own body are nullified across the country? Since it has already been proven that abortion laws don’t stop abortions, is America on the path of returning to the practice of unsafe, back-alley procedures? Or, will the new Alabama law serve as a wake-up call to all of America that legislation against choice has no place in the 21st century?
“Elections have consequences” – Pres. Obama (in a closed-door meeting at the White House in 2009)
Thanks for covering this DJ. And what a story it is!
So I wonder just how many female Millennials and iGens (born in 1994 and later) are truly paying attention(?)..because frankly I find that many, if not most, members of those 2 generations take a heck of lot for granted. A heck of a lot…. especially females of voting age.
They tend to show very little (if any) appreciation for hard fought for Rights. And they treat those Rights as if they are entitlements. So are they beginning to understand what’s at stake NOW? Are they willing to step up NOW and very actively fight to retain this precious Right?
We shall see.
My thoughts continued……
Sadly, White men in power trying to control the lives of others is nothing new. White men in power dictating that women, and young girls, have NO choice but to carry a baby to full term – EVEN in cases of rape or incest or the life of the pregnant woman being at stake – tells you all you need to know about such creatures. They are NOT men. And they darn sure AIN’T followers of the Gospel of Christ. Those putrid sick-azz creatures are in fact “a god unto them self.”
And let me be clear. I do NOT believe in using abortion as a means of birth control. NO ONE need get pregnant these days who doesn’t want to be pregnant (the exception being rape and incest). There’s just too d*mn much out there to use to prevent such a thing from happening. And sadly, since its passage “the Right to choose” HAS been abused by far too many lazy and irresponsible females AND males. Take responsibility for your behavior OR STOP having sex!!!
But that said. Men do NOT have the right to tell a woman (or young girl) what to do with her body, especially when it involves rape OR incest OR when the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. Full stop.
You know its a problem when even Repubs come out saying Alabama went too far. What nerve of them to pass this law one day and kill somebody the next talking about they support all life. All this is going to get used against Repubs in elections.
AP:
Days after Alabama’s government passed a near-total ban on abortion, President Donald Trump and other prominent Republican lawmakers are staking out their more lenient positions on the issue.
Saturday night, Trump sent out a series of tweets explaining his stance on reproductive rights while warning that Republicans will suffer if the party cannot get on the same page.
“I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions — Rape, Incest and protecting the Life of the mother — the same position taken by Ronald Reagan,” he wrote. “We must stick together and Win for Life in 2020. If we are foolish and do not stay UNITED as one, all of our hard fought gains for Life can, and will, rapidly disappear!”
Alabama’s ban, which was signed into law by the state’s governor Wednesday, features only one of the three exceptions the president favors: It only allows for abortions if the pregnant person’s life is at risk, and has no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
On Sunday, Republican Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Tom Cotton of Arkansas signaled they also have concerns about Alabama’s law.
In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Romney said he doesn’t support the Alabama law because, like the president, he believes in exceptions for rape, incest, and situations in which the pregnant woman’s life is in danger. He criticized both overly strict anti-abortion laws and very permissive abortion laws as “extreme,” arguing, “I think something much more toward the center makes a lot more sense.”
On NBC’s Meet the Press, Cotton echoed Trump and Romney. When host Chuck Todd asked the senator why he believes in these exceptions given he has been clear he believes life begins at conception, Cotton replied, “Because we live in a democratic society, I recognize not everyone shares my views.”
The remarks by Trump, Romney, and Cotton reflect an emerging trend among Republican leaders. Earlier in the week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky also expressed support for the three exceptions. “He opposes abortion except in the instance of rape, incest, or the life of the mother in is danger,” his spokesperson Doug Andres said.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy took the same position. “I believe in exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother, and that’s what I’ve voted on,” he said.
And Alabama’s Republican senator, Richard Shelby, said he takes issue with his state’s new law. “I’m not down there,” he said of the ban, and echoed his colleagues in their support for exceptions to a total ban.
As Republican-controlled states such as Alabama and Georgia have passed restrictive abortion legislation, Republicans in Washington have worked to make it clear that while they are, on the whole, anti-abortion, they nevertheless are aligned with the 77 percent of Americans (according to a 2018 Gallup poll) who believe in abortion access in the three cases outlined by Trump.
Btw what the woman said in the article about being raped by her own father should be read by every person opposing a woman being able to make the choice.