Now that they've got Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court

Next up: Alabama passed the most restrictive anti-abortion law yet, secure in the belief that court challenges will wind up in the hands of supporters.

Alabama’s new law mandating an almost blanket ban on abortion, the strictest in the United States, was passed by this group of exclusively white, male politicians.

The Alabama law will disproportionately affect black and poor women, because they are more likely to seek abortions, and less likely to have resources to obtain an abortion out-of-state.

Of the 27 Republicans, all white men, that dominate the 35-seat Alabama senate, 25 voted to pass the bill late on Tuesday.

[...]

Two Republicans did not vote.

[...]

There are only four women in the Alabama senate, who are among the eight-strong Democratic party minority in the upper chamber of the state legislature.

[...]

The legislation makes abortion a crime at any stage of pregnancy, with the only exception for a serious threat to the health of the woman.

  Guardian

Gee, why did they allow that exception? They didn't allow rape or incest.

The law is one example of a severe clampdown on women’s reproductive rights spreading across Republican-led states. The White House has stoked anti-abortion campaigners’ fervor, with conservative court nominations and a litany of bureaucratic changes restricting reproductive freedom and related funding.

[...]

Anti-abortion campaigners have successfully enacted a ban on all or most abortions in seven Republican-led states: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio and Georgia.

[...]

At least 61 bills like this have been introduced across the country, in states including Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, Minnesota, Texas and West Virginia. Even in states considered safe havens for abortion rights, such as New York and Illinois, anti-abortion lawmakers have introduced bills as a kind of protest.

The wave of restrictions is due primarily to the Trump administration’s judicial picks. Anti-abortion campaigners believe the chances of further restricting abortion through court cases are better today than they were a year ago.In Ohio for example, the leader of one anti-abortion and anti-gay hate group, Janet Porter, pressed for a ban on abortions for nearly a decade. She only succeeded this year, after the Trump administration pushed the supreme court and lower courts to the right.

[...]

To pressure the supreme court to take up a case, anti-abortion campaigners have pushed for these clearly unconstitutional restrictions to be passed in the seven state legislatures. Civil rights groups are forced to challenge the laws in court to stop their implementation, setting up a fight and a chance to get to the highest court.

Some groups want to use these cases to overturn Roe v Wade or severely restrict how it is interpreted.

Unless and until the supreme court speaks on one of these cases, abortion remains legal to the point a fetus can survive outside the womb in the US.

[...]

[S]ome civil rights lawyers are cautiously optimistic that the supreme court is not interested in revisiting Roe, even with new conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh in place.

It is impossible to say for certain whether one of the new laws being passed by states will be considered.

But even if states do not succeed in making abortion illegal, the pile-on of restrictions has had an impact. There are fewer abortion providers and the procedure is more expensive, making it ever more difficult for women to exercise their rights.

  Guardian

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.