Alabama is showing the way to protect all human life from abortion

Alabama is making headlines for something everyone knows, whether they admit it publicly or not: babies are people too, and people deserve protection under the law. It’s a simple principle that as individuals most understand, a civil society needs the law to care about whether any of us are harmed and to hold accountable those who cause that harm. What makes Alabama so noteworthy is their willingness to tell abortion vendors that civil rights extend to preborn women, and to men for that matter.

And this new law puts the blame for abortion squarely where it belongs, on those who have set up a  enterprise trafficking in ending life and targeting vulnerable women who are victimized by a predatory abortion industry.

Women have not and should not ever be charged related to abortion, and Alabama gets that right. In fact, as attorney Clarke Forsythe has noted, it’s abortionists who tried to muddy the media and cultural waters with false claims to the contrary, misstating legal history. 

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He writes: “To protect their own hide, it was abortionists (like the cult hero and abortionist Ruth Barnett when Oregon last prosecuted her in 1968), who, when they were prosecuted, sought to haul the women they aborted into court.”

Pro-life movement stands with women

The pro-life movement has always stood with women, lending support through financial support and personal participation with pregnancy care centers, community outreach in faith-based clinics, social services and adoption. Students for Life of America, for example, runs a Pregnant on Campus program to help pregnant and parenting students both to know their legal rights and to achieve help through creative programming like nursing rooms, access to child care and preferred parking. With 14 chapters on college and university campuses in Alabama and more than 1,200 nationwide, we are every day engaging this generation with information about their options for life and the facts about abortion’s impact. Next week, SFLA will be on Capitol Hill asking legislators to support young families with their own money in new, national family-leave proposals. Our society must be as committed to helping families prosper as we are in working for a world in which all are protected in the law.

The Alabama legislators wisely made provisions in the law for women whose lives are at risk in pregnancy, but they also courageously defended a group of people often marginalized by the abortion lobby, those conceived in rape or incest. Birth certificates are not issued with a stamp detailing just how each of us came to be. Human worth does not depend on that single event. Dear friends of mine, conceived in rape, value their time on this earth and deserve their own chance to make a difference. Sexual crimes must be fully prosecuted under the law, but as a nation, we shouldn’t punish children for what their fathers did as that’s a dangerous, slippery slope.

Don't believe their scare tactics

Abortion profiteers are tragically using this legal victory to scare women into believing that abortion bans mean women who endure painful miscarriages will be at risk for legal troubles. This is patently false, as natural miscarriage is fundamentally different than an induced abortion, where the intent is clearly to end life. This is not a mere legal technicality. Trying to equate natural miscarriages with abortion is like comparing euthanasia to a natural death. It matters whether someone actively works to end life and profits from doing so. 

A huge international story puts Alabama’s law in perspective. When Meghan Markle carried a royal baby, the coverage was clear that it was a human being we all were waiting to meet. All babies deserve that fanfare, but more importantly, all deserve the recognition that a unique and important person is preparing to take their place in the world, and we should welcome them to the human family. As Dr. Seuss said, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America, serving more than 1,200 SFLA chapters on college and university campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins