Why would they need to do that? Presumably existing laws already provide for prison time in cases of rape and incest, and for child support in the case of absent fathers.
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So it’s now official - in Alabama, the punishment for being raped is worse than the punishment for raping.
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Once again, we see that anit-abortion is really just a form of sadism. It’s not about protecting anything, it’s all about punishing women for having sex. It’s a fetish, how they share grisly images of animal embryos and claim they are human, the bloodier the better. That even the female anti-abortion activists seem to be almost envious of rape victims, hiding behind a facade of prudishness.
I don’t want to be an American any more sometimes, but then I realise these authoritarian assholes are everywhere. It wasn’t that long ago that anti-abortionists were in charge in Germany. From 1933 to 1945, to be precise.Yes, Godwin’s Law and all that. I don’t care.
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ETA:
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At the risk of going off topic, all his law really says is that the longer any discussion goes on, the greater the chance that someone, somewhere will make a nazi comparison. It’s just that some threads take longer than others, and some end before that point is reached. All that malarky about it being taboo is just playing a game of trying to defy expectations.
And here it is appropriate. The Nazis were rabid about how the role of a German woman was to make babies. Their creepy fixation on proving that they were the master race and whatnot. They were the ones who introduced anti-abortion legislation in the first place and got the ball rolling with anti-abortion propaganda against the supposed decadence of Weimar Republic Germany. It was a blatant pandering to arch-conservative voters in Bavaria and other catholic regions.
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I agree. I just always expect someone to dismiss a sound argument because it has a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis in it.
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The bit where, if you have a miscarriage, and someone decides that your behaviour might have lead to the miscarriage, you can be charged with second-degree murder; really? 
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(6) SERIOUS HEALTH RISK TO THE UNBORN CHILD’S MOTHER. In reasonable medical judgment, the child’s mother has a condition that so complicates her medical condition that it necessitates the termination of her pregnancy to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial physical impairment of a major bodily function. This term does not include a condition based on a claim that the woman is suffering from an emotional condition or a mental illness which will cause her to engage in conduct that intends to result in her death or the death of her unborn child. However, the condition may exist if a second physician who is licensed in Alabama as a psychiatrist, with a minimum of three years of clinical experience, examines the woman and documents that the woman has a diagnosed serious mental illness and because of it, there is reasonable medical judgment that she will engage in conduct that could result in her death or the death of her unborn child. If the mental health diagnosis and likelihood of conduct is confirmed as provided in this act, and it is determined that a termination of her pregnancy is medically necessary to avoid the conduct, the termination may be performed and shall be only performed by a physician licensed in Alabama in a hospital as defined in the Alabama Administrative Code and to which he or she has admitting privileges.
In that case, you need two Alabama doctors to confirm the health risk (regardless of whether it’s psychiatric or not so that whole bit is redundant but let’s not let that concern us too much - there’s a whole point of repetition and shoddy drafting in this bill).
There’s also a provision about medical emergencies:
(4) MEDICAL EMERGENCY. A condition which, in reasonable medical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of the pregnant woman that her pregnancy must be terminated to avoid a serious health risk as defined in this act.
which is curiously circular since the only permitted abortion is:
An abortion shall be permitted if an attending physician licensed in Alabama determines that an abortion is necessary in order to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother. Except in the case of a medical emergency as defined herein, the physician’s determination shall be confirmed in writing by a second physician licensed in Alabama. The confirmation shall occur within 180 days after the abortion is completed and shall be prima facie evidence for a permitted abortion.
but then again the definition of an abortion already excludes things done to avoid a medical risk to the mother:
(1) ABORTION. The use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance or device with the intent to terminate the pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant with knowledge that the termination by those means will with reasonable likelihood cause the death of the unborn child. The term does not include these activities if done with the intent to save the life or preserve the health of an unborn child, remove a dead unborn child, to deliver the unborn child prematurely to avoid a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother, or to preserve the health of her unborn child. The term does not include a procedure or act to terminate the pregnancy of a woman with an ectopic pregnancy [so someone in Alabama presumably thinks that an ectopic pregnancy doesn’t fall in the category of a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother], nor does it include the procedure or act to terminate the pregnancy of a woman when the unborn child has a lethal anomaly.
So, you can perform an abortion if there’s a serious health risk to the mother but if there is a serious health risk, it’s not an abortion as defined in the bill.
And you need two doctors to confirm that there is a serious health risk in order for the non-abortion to be a legal abortion, unless there’s a serious health risk to the mother in which case one doctor will do.
Whoever drafts bills in Alabama needs to have a serious look in the mirror and decide whether they’re really cut out for the work.
ETA: Link to the bill:
http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/alison/searchableinstruments/2019RS/bills/HB314.htm
At least I think it’s the right one - there’s a few different versions on the Alabama legislature’s website. Redundancy seems to be their watchword.
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A 1996 study of thousands of US women showed that, of pregnancies resulting from rape, 50% were aborted, 12% resulted in miscarriage, and 38% were brought to term and either placed for adoption or raised. Estimates of the numbers of pregnancies from rape vary widely.[8][9] Recent estimates suggest that rape conception happens between 25,000 and 32,000 times each year in the U.S. In a 1996 three-year longitudinal study of 4,000 American women, physician Melisa Holmes estimated from data from her study that forced sexual intercourse causes over 32,000 pregnancies in the United States each year.
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10-20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, so investigating all of those as murder will be a good use of police resources. Women might need to be careful with pregnancy kits, as they could be used against them as evidence in their murder trials.
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…hold on, this isn’t constitutional, right? Is the bill useful for anything except bird-cage lining? I mean, yes, it’s terrible that they want a bill like this, but I was under the impression that they can’t have a bill like this. Ever. Not without an amendment or a differing SCOTUS decision.
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SMH at legislators in states like Alabama and Georgia not thinking through the concept that if a woman is pretty sure she’ll be arrested and prosecuted for murder for aborting a child, she won’t just kill them too, as long as she’s at it. /s
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Unless I’ve missed something the bill explicitly states that the woman will not be criminally or civilly liable.
It’s aimed at the doctor - although apparently confirming the medical risk will also not attract any liability.
Section 5. No woman upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed shall be criminally or civilly liable. Furthermore, no physician confirming the serious health risk to the child’s mother shall be criminally or civilly liable for those actions.
All you need is two doctors willing to state there’s a medical issue and no one has any liability at all under the bill.
Although those doctors do have to be licensed in Alabama so…
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Exactly.
Or did I miss the overturning of Roe v. Wade ?
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It really does happen in some countries with absolute bans on abortion.
In El Salvador, women who suffer pregnancy-related complications resulting in miscarriages and stillbirths are routinely suspected of having an abortion, which is banned in all circumstances. Prosecutors often charge them with ‘homicide’ or even ‘aggravated homicide’, which carries a penalty of up 50 years in prison.
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The objective might be to get the Supreme Court to rule on the Alabama law – and strike down Roe v. Wade instead.
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That is explicitly the objective.
The legislation was drafted by Eric Johnston of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition and framed as an explicit attempt to challenge Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down state bans on abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.
Aha - we have the guilty party…
Eric Johnston - you are an incompetent hack who should not be allowed within 2000 miles of legislation.
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The Georgia law does that, not the Alabama one. I was unclear on that.
By defining fetuses as people, the law would appear to have implications far beyond those directly addressed in its text. State prosecutors, for example, might be able to charge women whose pregnancies end in miscarriage with second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of 10 to 30 years, if they can prove the miscarriage was a result of the woman’s own conduct, like drug or alcohol use, as Slate argued.
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Oh, that’s not surprising (that you were unclear on it). The whole bill is a mess.
I’m not even sure whether the bill would ensure that a woman couldn’t be prosecuted for accessory to murder or something if the bill passes into law.
My understanding is that abortion would be murder under Alabama law (it’s hard to see how it wouldn’t be) so the doctor would clearly be on the hook and the woman is presumably hiring the doctor to commit murder so unless there is a valid exception…
And the bill is so vaguely worded. Does it mean no criminal liability of any kind? Or just no criminal liability under this Act in particular?
The heartbeat thing intrigues me. I’ve seen some references to it in relation to the Alabama law as if that does something different to a ‘heartbeat bill’.
But it does exactly the same - or even more.
(7) UNBORN CHILD, CHILD or PERSON. A human being, specifically including an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability.
Another shitty bit of drafting by the way (we’re really racking these up). Three definitions for the price of one!
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I believe they are called “snowflake babies” meaning, people adopt frozen, fertilized, embryos to carry them to term. I am not making that up.
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