by Rebecca Cleary
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| Protesters dressed as characters from Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, 'The Handmaid's Tale'. |
On Tuesday night, the Alabama senate passed one of the most
restrictive laws in the United States regarding abortion. The law states that
it is now a Class A felony to perform an abortion at any stage during a
pregnancy, with the one exception being where the mother’s health is at risk.
However, it does not allow for an exception in situations involving cases of
incest or even rape. In the state of Alabama, doctors who perform this
procedure can now be looking at between 10 to 99 years in prison, which is a
harsher sentence than the one facing those who are convicted of rape.
The bill was moved to the Alabama Governor, Kay Ivey, who
signed the bill into law, despite mass outrage and protests, and the
legislation is said to be poised for legal challenge.
Alabama now joins six other states, including Georgia and
Ohio, which ban all or most abortions. Unfortunately, this law will not stop
abortions from happening, it is likely that it will only make the procedure
more dangerous, due to the increase in unregulated abortions.
Although there are religious arguments against abortion,
many argue that abortion should be a fundamental human right; that it is the
choice of whoever is concerned, and those who object should ‘take no notice of
it’, as they don’t need to be involved.
Another argument that has arisen from this debate is whether
men should be involved in this particular issue at all; is it not women’s
bodies who are affected and so shouldn’t they make that decision without the
men’s opinions? As State senator Vivian Davis Figures said, ‘You don’t have to
carry that child’. This is particularly pertinent because in the Alabama Senate women are
hideously underrepresented, with only four female senators, accounting for 11%
of the 35 seats.
Considering that this action relates directly to the female
body and her right to choose, it does seem to appear that this new law, along
with the laws in other states, is going backwards in the rights of women, which
disregards what so many have done to try and improve women’s rights in one of
the world’s leading democratic societies. Even the notion of a woman who is
victim of rape being forced to carry and then give birth to their attacker’s
child seems grotesque, but this is what those who voted in favour of this law
are expecting them to do.
As Hillary Clinton commented, ‘[the recent abortion bans in
the US] are appalling attacks on women’s lives and fundamental freedoms.
Women’s rights are human rights. We will not go back.'
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