And so it begins.
Planned Parenthood Southeast and Alabama’s ACLU chapter filed a lawsuit on Friday after the state’s Republican Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed into a law an abortion ban that–if it were to go into effect–could punish doctors with 99 years in prison.
The Alabama bill includes no rape or incest exceptions, but it includes an exception for when the life of the mother is in danger. It does not threaten to incarcerate women who receive abortions, only doctors who provide them.
Plaintiffs are asking the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama Northern Division to declare HB 314 unconstitutional “under more than four decades of binding Supreme Court precedent” and to issue an injunction to prevent it from going into effect.
To bolster their claim, they cited statements from Republicans admitting that HB 314 was “unconstitutional.”
Planned Parenthood Southeast’s President and CEO Staci Fox referenced Alabama’s state motto in a Friday statement about the lawsuit.
“Alabama’s state motto is audemus jura nostra defendere, which means ‘we dare defend our rights.’ That’s exactly what we’re doing here today,” Fox said. “Abortion has been safe and legal in this country for more than 45 years and we aim to keep it that way. We are protecting the rights of our patients. We are defending the work of the brave folks who came before us. And we are fighting to take this country forward, not backwards.”
You can read the filing below.
Alabama abortion bill lawsuit by Law&Crime on Scribd
[Image via Image SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images]
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