New abortion laws aim for high court review. But will it work?
America | State legislatures in the South and Midwest have adopted a series of laws limiting abortion this year, including the nation’s most restrictive abortion law in Alabama. Meanwhile, some Illinois lawmakers continued to push what has been called the country’s most extreme abortion bill, which would legalize abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.
The Alabama law, signed by Gov. Kay Ivey May 15, makes it a felony for a person to perform an abortion in the state. There is an exception in the case of a serious health risk to the mother, but not for rape or incest. The bill faces legal challenges, but its sponsors are hopeful it will reach a conservative U.S. Supreme Court and result in the overturn of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The National Right to Life Committee estimates more than 60 million abortions have been performed in the U.S. since 1973.
The bill could be a step toward challenging or ultimately overturning Roe because it directly challenges the earlier ruling itself, Mary Kate Knorr told the Illinois Baptist. Knorr is executive director of Illinois Right to Life, headquartered in Springfield.
“By voting into law a bill that goes directly against the Roe vs. Wade ruling (which Alabama’s law does, in this case), they’re creating an opportunity for this legislation to be litigated—potentially as far as the Supreme Court,” Knorr said. “Nothing is guaranteed, of course, but this is certainly a direct challenge of the ruling, no doubt.”
Too extreme?
The Alabama bill is among the most recent in a slate of laws passed by states attempting to challenge Roe vs. Wade. “Fetal heartbeat” legislation, which prohibits abortion once a heartbeat can be detected, passed in Missouri May 17 and was signed by Gov. Mike Parsons May 24. Similar measures in Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio were passed earlier this year, but no state’s fetal heartbeat bill has gone into effect.
No legislation created headlines like the Alabama bill, which dominated national news and incited reactions from Hollywood, Washington, and televangelist Pat Robertson. The host of “The 700 Club” called the bill “extreme.”
“They want to challenge Roe vs. Wade,” Robertson said May 15, “but my humble view is that this is not the case we want to bring to the Supreme Court, because I think this one will lose.”
The bill’s most divisive element seems to be its lack of exceptions for rape and incest (which the Missouri measure also excludes). Columnist and “Meet the Press” pundit Eugene Robinson called the law a “political misfire” for pro-lifers, in part because it gives supporters of abortion rights a much-needed focus.
But many say the bill’s sponsors—and pro-life lawmakers in other states—are well aware of the challenges their laws will face in court. “They also know they will probably lose,” wrote Emma Green for The Atlantic.
“If Georgia’s so-called heartbeat bill or Alabama’s abortion ban were to end up before the high court, they might offer a dramatic opportunity for the Court to undo 46 years of jurisprudence on abortion,” Green wrote. “Or perhaps one of these bills will provide an opening: a chance to limit abortion, little by little, until one day it has been banned in all but name.”
‘The people have spoken’
In Illinois, legislators are working to move the state’s abortion laws in the opposite direction. The Springfield State Journal-Register reported abortion rights supporters rallied at the Capitol May 15 as lawmakers demanded action on the state’s pending Reproductive Health Act, which would repeal several existing restrictions on abortion. Dozens of women in red “handmaid” costumes (from Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale) stood with sponsors Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) and Sen. Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake).
The law stalled in committee this spring, following a March 20 pro-life rally and march that shut down the Capitol and signaled that life advocates were willing to speak up against expanded abortion in Illinois. According to the Thomas More Society’s analysis of the Reproductive Health Act, it would:
- allow abortions for any reason whatsoever throughout all nine months of pregnancy;
- require health insurance policies to include coverage for all abortions, with no exemptions, even for churches and other religious organizations; and
- jeopardize enforcement of the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 (which is the subject of a separate bill designed to repeal it).
“More than 18,000 Illinois residents filed witness slips in opposition to these bills when they were scheduled for a hearing in committee,” Knorr said. “That’s absolutely unheard of. It’s very clear that the people of Illinois have spoken on this issue, and they do not want legislators to pass this extreme abortion legislation.”
With just days left in the spring session, Cassidy told Capitol Fax on May 22 (the session ends May 31) that she believed the Reproductive Health bill would be moving forward and House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) would consider a request to hear the bill in another committee.
Knorr encouraged pro-life advocates to continue to reach out to their state representatives and Speaker Madigan to communicate that Illinoisans don’t want legislation that would repeal parental notice and the state’s late-term abortion bill. “Pro-lifers need to continue to reiterate these points over and over again until these bills are put to rest for good.”
– Illinois Baptist team, with info from ERLC.com and Capitol Fax.