« Unconstitutional. » « A utter disgrace. » « It’s time to fight like hell. » 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are hitting back hard against Alabama’s near-total…
« Unconstitutional. » « A utter disgrace. » « It’s time to fight like hell. »
2020 Democratic presidential candidates are hitting back hard against Alabama’s near-total abortion ban, which was signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday. Several of the White House hopefuls are pointing to the need for better health care and to defend the Supreme Court’s precedent set forth in Roe v. Wade.
Their comments come after a number of states passed similarly restrictive abortion laws as part of a broader push by anti-abortion activists. The Alabama measure is one of the most restrictive in the U. S., and will ban abortions in almost all cases except where a woman’s health is in danger.
Several other states — Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, and Ohio — have all passed laws this year banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur before many women know they’re pregnant.
President Donald Trump has yet to comment on the recent bills being passed by state lawmakers. However, he has repeatedly made misleading comment’s on Democrats’ stance on abortion during recent rallies.
“Democrats are aggressively pushing late-term abortion allowing children to be ripped from their mother’s womb, right up until the moment of birth, » he said earlier this month at a rally at Panama City Beach, Fla. « The baby is born and you wrap the baby beautifully and you talk to the mother about the possible execution of the baby. »
However, few babies are born alive — 143 between 2003 to 2014 — after a failed abortion, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, the CDC reported that just 1.3% of abortions take place after 21 weeks, which often involve either severe fetal anomalies or conditions that endanger the mother.
Here’s where the presidential candidates stand:
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N. Y., denounced the new Alabama law, saying that women deserve better.
« Women are half of this country, and they deserve a hell of a lot better than this, » she tweeted, linking to an article about Ivey signing the bill into law.
Ahead of the Tuesday vote in the state’s legislature, she repeatedly tweeted against the Alabama bill, adding that the legislation and laws in other states like it are a « ruthless, coordinated assault on reproductive rights. »
« Alabama just passed a near-total ban on abortion. No exceptions for rape or incest. Doctors could face 99 years in prison for providing abortions, » she tweeted after the bill passed Tuesday. « This is a war on women, and it is time to fight like hell. »
She will be in Atlanta, Ga., Thursday to headline a group of women protesting that state’s « heartbeat » law, which was passed before Alabama’s new law. It will be the first time she is visiting the state since launching her presidential campaign.
« The onslaught of abortion bans passing in states—as recently as in Alabama’s legislature last night—represents the greatest threat to reproductive freedom in our lifetimes, » Gillibrand wrote in a tweet about her visit to Georgia.
