Alabama voters to decide abortion amendment that may decide little
Yet
"To be honest, I haven't been engaged in the issue," said Harless, who runs the nonprofit that collects money from the state's "Choose Life" license plate and distributes it to anti-abortion pregnancy counseling centers. "I'm busy planning a symposium for adoption agencies and taking care of pregnancy crisis centers."
Harless isn't alone. More than a year after the
"This is just a statement of policy," said
Stunt no more
When
The state had imposed restrictions on abortion before -- making it tougher for minors to seek abortions and adding new regulations for clinics and doctors -- only to see most of the changes quickly overturned in federal court.
In
The proposed amendment, which would "ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child in all manners" and declared that "nothing in this
"This bill's not going to save any lives until Roe v. Wade is repealed," Sen.
The stakes would seem to be higher now. Kennedy, historically a swing vote on the
"Under past federal administrations, we would call this amendment a stunt, but we don't have that luxury anymore,"
Low-key campaign
Raven believes the amendment could bring stronger restrictions than even many abortion opponents would want. In a post-Roe world, she said, old state laws against abortion might come back into effect anyway. The amendment, she said, would close any exceptions in those laws for rape, incest or the mother's health.
Raven polled her Facebook friends, many of them abortion-rights activists, last month to ask what they knew about the amendment. Most said they knew no details.
"The implications of the amendment are great either way, but with Kavanaugh, the stakes are now higher," said
Luttrell said the group has been urging its allies to campaign against the amendment, but she noted that there's another major issue in the group's sights.
Luttrell said the group is encouraging its supporters to call Jones and sway him. She noted that women, and especially minority women, turned out in large numbers for Jones.
"A court with Kavanaugh would have huge implications for the people who elected Jones," Luttrell said.
Local TV airwaves have been burning up with ads that make similar call-your-senator appeals.
Johnston, leader of the
Life after Roe
A post-Roe world is a real possibility, said
"The court is conservative, not just in terms of right and left, but also in the broader sense," said Ziegler, who has written extensively about abortion-related law.
Ziegler noted that challenges to state laws can take years to work their way through the courts -- and that even Republican courts are reluctant to overturn long-standing decisions. She said it's more likely that red states will try to chip away at Roe with further restrictions on abortion.
Even in a post-Roe world, Ziegler said, the
"It looks like a solution in search of a problem," Ziegler said.
She said that in
"You don't really have that issue in
Ziegler said any abortion ban would likely have to address a number of issues on which even abortion foes can't reach consensus. Punish women, or only doctors, for breaking the law? Should there be exceptions for rape or incest? If life begins at conception, what to do with fertility clinics? What's the penalty for distributing abortion-inducing drugs, which largely didn't exist in the days before Roe?
Next steps
Johnston, the
"It doesn't do anything by itself," he said. "It doesn't require anybody to do anything."
He said the Legislature would need to pass enabling legislation to ban abortion even if the amendment passed and Roe went away. He said lawmakers in the next legislative session might pass bills that could become test cases for restricting or overturning abortion.
Asked how anti-abortion activists should be spending their time now -- calling senators about Kavanaugh, working on state legislative campaigns or advocating for the statewide amendment -- Johnston declined to give one item priority.
"They should do all those things," he said.
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Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn., Charley Walters column
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