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Alabama Gambles on Abortion Again

Written by on July 11, 2019 | Opinion

Who says we don’t have gambling in Alabama? We do, we just gamble on the weirdest things. Recently the state legislature went all-in on overturning Roe v. Wade with Alabama’s new total ban on abortions. The problem is the roulette wheel that is abortion legislation in this country hasn’t stopped spinning yet, and it looks like Alabama’s going to lose again.

This past legislative session, the Alabama State Legislature passed a near-total ban on abortion in the state, going so far as to recommend a life sentence in prison for healthcare personnel that conducts an abortion. By the admission of the authors of the legislation, this legislation isn’t designed ever to take effect, but more designed to work its way through the court system up to the United States Supreme Court. The state legislature in Alabama is gambling that the newly solidified conservative majority on the United States Supreme Court will uphold their legislation. The authors of the current abortion ban in the state have even gone as far as to say that if the bill is upheld that they would go back and change the legislation to mirror other states efforts with heartbeat abortion ban legislation, which also will allow for exceptions of cases of rape and incest.

The problem is that with this latest term that just finished up, the first full term under the newly solidified conservative majority on the court, has indicated it’s not going to be as willing as everybody thought to upset the apple cart when it comes to settled court precedent in the legal system. In several cases in this last term, Justices Roberts Gorsuch and Kavanaugh all formed alliances with the liberal wing of the court to go against the wishes of conservative America. Furthermore at the end of the term, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the state of Alabama in a case related to restrictions put in place on abortion in a 2016 Alabama law that if the court was willing to show that they would consider more restrictions on abortion than that are currently in place, would be the perfect case for them to take up.

So It looks like that the state legislature of a state that is constantly checking the coat pockets in hopes of finding an extra $20 to meet that month’s bills, has decided to take the rent check down to the casino and place all of our money on black on the roulette table that is abortion legislation. And even though the roulette wheel hasn’t stopped spinning yet, it looks like things are coming up red for the state of Alabama again.

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