Who Drafted Alabama's Abortion Law?

Alabama's abortion law, which bans abortion in almost all cases, was written by Eric Johnston, the president of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition. The bill was signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey, making it the most restrictive abortion legislation in the country. The law makes providing an abortion a felony punishable by up to 99 years in prison, except to save the mother's life, with no exceptions for incest or rape. The aim of the law is to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which established a woman's constitutional right to privacy and to determine when to have a child.

Who is Eric Johnston?

Eric Johnston is an attorney, constitutional law specialist, and founder and president of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition. He has been one of the most prolific drafters of legislation in Alabama, having drafted more than 12 anti-abortion laws for the state, including a near-total ban passed in 2019. He has been trying to ban abortion for over 30 years.

Johnston's Alabama Pro-Life Coalition pushed for a strict ban on abortion, rather than a six-week ban, because they wanted to recognise a life at the point of detectable conception. He has also been vocal about his belief that there should be no exceptions for rape and incest in abortion laws, arguing that it is inconsistent to say that a child conceived by rape or incest is not a person when one conceived by agreement or artificial insemination is.

Johnston has been involved in other controversial legislation in Alabama, including anti-gay marriage laws that were ruled unconstitutional in 2015, and Amendment One, better known as the "anti-Sharia law," which banned courts from considering "foreign law" in cases.

He has also been working towards overturning Roe v. Wade, stating that the appointment of two new U.S. Supreme Court justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, has brought this goal within reach. He has focused on addressing the issues raised in the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, which established that a woman’s right to abortion was protected by a constitutional right to privacy, based on the viability of the fetus. Johnston has argued that the definition of viability is unclear and that the beginning of life should be defined as the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterine wall, as this can be scientifically proven.

Johnston is an evangelical Christian who attends Briarwood Presbyterian Church. He has compared the abortion issue to the slavery debate, calling it a defining moral question of our era.

Alabama's Republican governor Kay Ivey

Alabama's Republican Governor, Kay Ivey, was born and raised in Camden, Wilcox County, Alabama. Growing up on her father's farm, Ivey learned the value of hard work and financial prudence. Ivey's parents instilled in her the values of faith, family, and community. After graduating from Auburn University in 1967, she worked as a high school teacher and a bank officer.

Ivey's career in public service began as the Reading Clerk of the Alabama House of Representatives under Speaker Joseph C. McCorquodale. She then served as Assistant Director of the Alabama Development Office, where she focused on job creation and economic development initiatives across the state. In 2002, Ivey broke new ground by becoming the first Republican elected State Treasurer since Reconstruction, and she was re-elected in 2006. During her tenure as State Treasurer, she worked to make the office more open, transparent, and efficient.

In 2010, Ivey continued to blaze a trail by becoming the first Republican woman to be elected Lieutenant Governor in Alabama's history. She was re-elected to this position in 2014, making history once again as the first Republican Lieutenant Governor to achieve this feat. On April 10, 2017, Ivey was sworn in as Alabama's 54th Governor, assuming office due to a vacancy in the Governor's Office. She was subsequently elected to a full term in November 2018 and was officially sworn in for her first full term in January 2019.

Governor Ivey has prioritized conservative leadership, with a focus on education, economic development, infrastructure, and government reform. Under her administration, Alabama has witnessed record-high employment and the lowest unemployment rate in its history. Ivey has successfully attracted over $42 billion in New Capital Investment and created more than 78,000 well-paying jobs. She remains committed to offering economic development opportunities to both rural and metropolitan regions of the state.

Governor Ivey's dedication to public service has been recognized through numerous awards, including the 2015 ALFA Service to Agriculture Award, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 2016 Public Service Award, and the Alabama Automotive Manufacturers Association Hall of Fame Award. She was also named one of Newsmax's 50 Most Influential Female Republicans in the country.

Roe v. Wade

The case was brought by Norma McCorvey—under the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe"—who, in 1969, became pregnant with her third child. McCorvey wanted an abortion but lived in Texas, where abortion was illegal except when necessary to save the mother's life. Her lawyers, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, filed a lawsuit on her behalf in U.S. federal court against her local district attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional. A special three-judge court of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas heard the case and ruled in her favor. The parties appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court. In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy", which protects a pregnant woman's right to an abortion. It also held that the right to abortion is not absolute and must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life. It resolved these competing interests by announcing a pregnancy trimester timetable to govern all abortion regulations in the United States. The Court also classified the right to abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the most stringent level of judicial review in the United States.

The Supreme Court's decision in Roe was among the most controversial in U.S. history. In addition to the dissent, Roe was criticized by some in the legal community, including some who thought that Roe reached the correct result but went about it the wrong way, and some called the decision a form of judicial activism. Others argued that Roe did not go far enough, as it was placed within the framework of civil rights rather than the broader human rights. The decision also radically reconfigured the voting coalitions of the Republican and Democratic parties in the following decades. Anti-abortion politicians and activists sought for decades to restrict abortion or overrule the decision; polls into the 21st century showed that a plurality and a majority, especially into the late 2010s to early 2020s, opposed overruling Roe. Despite criticism of the decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe's central holding in its 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Casey overruled Roe's trimester framework and abandoned its "strict scrutiny" standard in favor of an "undue burden" test.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court overruled Roe and Casey in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on the grounds that the substantive right to abortion was not "deeply rooted in this Nation's history or tradition", nor considered a right when the Due Process Clause was ratified in 1868, and was unknown in U.S. law until Roe.

Relevant Documents: 2,3

Cited Documents: 2Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many abortion laws and caused an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication.

The case was brought by Norma McCorvey—under the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe"—who, in 1969, became pregnant with her third child. McCorvey wanted an abortion but lived in Texas, where abortion was illegal except when necessary to save the mother's life. Her lawyers, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, filed a lawsuit on her behalf in U.S. federal court against her local district attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional. A special three-judge court of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas heard the case and ruled in her favor. The parties appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court. In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy", which protects a pregnant woman's right to an abortion. It also held that the right to abortion is not absolute and must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life. It resolved these competing interests by announcing a pregnancy trimester timetable to govern all abortion regulations in the United States. The Court also classified the right to abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the most stringent level of judicial review in the United States.

The Supreme Court's decision in Roe was among the most controversial in U.S. history. In addition to the dissent, Roe was criticized by some in the legal community, including some who thought that Roe reached the correct result but went about it the wrong way, and some called the decision a form of judicial activism. Others argued that Roe did not go far enough, as it was placed within the framework of civil rights rather than the broader human rights. The decision also radically reconfigured the voting coalitions of the Republican and Democratic parties in the following decades. Anti-abortion politicians and activists sought for decades to restrict abortion or overrule the decision; polls into the 21st century showed that a plurality and a majority, especially into the late 2010s to early 2020s, opposed overruling Roe. Despite criticism of the decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe's central holding in its 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Casey overruled Roe's trimester framework and abandoned its "strict scrutiny" standard in favor of an "undue burden" test.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court overruled Roe and Casey in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on the grounds that the substantive right to abortion was not "deeply rooted in this Nation's history or tradition", nor considered a right when the Due Process Clause was ratified in 1868, and was unknown in U.S. law until Roe.Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many abortion laws and caused an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication.

The case was brought by Norma McCorvey—under the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe"—who, in 1969, became pregnant with her third child. McCorvey wanted an abortion but lived in Texas, where abortion was illegal except when necessary to save the mother's life. Her lawyers, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, filed a lawsuit on her behalf in U.S. federal court against her local district attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional. A special three-judge court of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas heard the case and ruled in her favor. The parties appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court. In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy", which protects a pregnant woman's right to an abortion. It also held that the right to abortion is not absolute and must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life. It resolved these competing interests by announcing a pregnancy trimester timetable to govern all abortion regulations in the United States. The Court also classified the right to abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the most stringent level of judicial review in the United States.

The Supreme Court's decision in Roe was among the most controversial in U.S. history. In addition to the dissent, Roe was criticized by some in the legal community, including some who thought that Roe reached the correct result but went about it the wrong way, and some called the decision a form of judicial activism. Others argued that Roe did not go far enough, as it was placed within the framework of civil rights rather than the broader human rights. The decision also radically reconfigured the voting coalitions of the Republican and Democratic parties in the following decades. Anti-abortion politicians and activists sought for decades to restrict abortion or overrule the decision; polls into the 21st century showed that a plurality and a majority, especially into the late 2010s to early 2020s, opposed overruling Roe. Despite criticism of the decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe's central holding in its 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Casey overruled Roe's trimester framework and abandoned its "strict scrutiny" standard in favor of an "undue burden" test.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court overruled Roe and Casey in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on the grounds that the substantive right to abortion was not "deeply rooted in this Nation's history or tradition", nor considered a right when the Due Process Clause was ratified in 1868, and was unknown in U.S. law until Roe.

Alabama's most restrictive abortion legislation

Alabama's abortion laws have evolved from strict regulations in the 19th and early 20th centuries to a period of liberalization following the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide. However, Alabama has consistently enacted legislation aimed at restricting access to abortion.

In May 2019, Alabama passed one of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws, the Human Life Protection Act (also known as House Bill 314). This law imposed a near-total ban on abortion in the state, allowing only very limited exceptions. The law was drafted by the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition and sponsored by Republican representatives Terri Collins and Clyde Chambliss. It was signed into law by then-Governor Kay Ivey on May 16, 2019.

The Human Life Protection Act bans abortions at any stage of pregnancy and makes it a Class A felony for a doctor to perform the procedure. The law provides for exceptions only in cases where the fetus has a lethal anomaly or when the pregnancy poses a serious health risk to the woman. Notably, the law does not include exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Several proposed amendments to include these exceptions were rejected during the legislative process.

The act faced strong opposition from Democratic politicians, activists, and some Republican leaders, who argued that it was too restrictive and inconsistent with Roe v. Wade. Legal challenges to the act were quickly brought by abortion rights advocates, and a preliminary injunction was issued by U.S. District Judge Myron Herbert Thompson in October 2019, delaying its implementation. However, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Judge Thompson lifted the injunction, allowing the law to go into effect.

The passage of the Human Life Protection Act sparked fierce debate and protests across Alabama, with Democratic leaders pledging to fight for abortion rights. The law also drew criticism from some Republican leaders, who supported exceptions for rape, incest, and danger to the life of the mother. The act was challenged in court by abortion rights groups such as POWER House and Planned Parenthood, who argued that it was unconstitutional and infringed on women's reproductive rights.

Alabama's abortion law deemed unconstitutional

Alabama's abortion law, which was passed in May 2019, is one of the most restrictive in the nation. The Human Life Protection Act, or House Bill 314, sought to ban abortions at all stages of pregnancy, with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. The law was granted an injunction until June 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing the Act to go into effect.

History of Abortion Laws in Alabama

Historically, Alabama's abortion laws have been strict. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the state enacted regulations that restricted access to abortion. By the end of 1972, Alabama allowed abortions only when the woman's physical health was endangered. However, the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide and prevented states from regulating abortion in the first trimester.

Legal Challenges to the Human Life Protection Act

The Human Life Protection Act has faced several legal challenges. In October 2019, a federal court blocked the bill, with U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson granting a preliminary injunction until the court resolved the case in full. Judge Thompson declared that the bill defied previous rulings in Roe v. Wade and the U.S. Constitution. He also expressed concern that the bill could cause "serious and irreparable harm", referring to the financial burden on women seeking abortion services.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and Judge Thompson lifted the injunction, allowing the Human Life Protection Act to go into effect in Alabama. However, this decision was also met with legal challenges. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit to challenge the Act, and in August 2022, the Eleventh Circuit Court ruled that the Act was unconstitutional, blocking its enforcement.

Other Unconstitutional Abortion Laws in Alabama

In addition to the Human Life Protection Act, Alabama has passed other abortion laws that have been deemed unconstitutional. In 2014, a federal judge ruled that a law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital was unconstitutional, as it placed an undue burden on women seeking abortions. This ruling was similar to decisions made in other states with similar laws.

Another law that was challenged and deemed unconstitutional was one that would have forced minors seeking an abortion without parental consent to undergo a trial, with an attorney appointed for the embryo. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the ACLU, which had filed the challenge, that the law placed an unconstitutional burden on minors, especially those who may have been subject to abuse.

Current Status of Abortion in Alabama

As of June 24, 2022, abortion in Alabama became illegal except when the pregnant person's life is in danger. There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Alabama continues to enforce its total abortion ban and retains other restrictive laws related to abortion.

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