Guest Column –
By Deanna Kell –

In case you’ve been living in a news bubble and didn’t hear about it already, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed into law the most restrictive abortion bill in the country on Wednesday, a near-total ban on all abortions, after the so-called the State of the Human Life Protection Act passed in both the House and Senate with overwhelming Republican majorities and was championed as a victory for the so-called “pro-life” movement.

But then on Thursday, May 16, the state executed a convicted murderer by lethal injection.

In many states and countries where abortions are legal and seen as a right of “choice” for women, the death penalty has been banned as “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Not in Alabama, the so-called Heart of Dixie state, the reddest of red states, where football rules and all three branches of government are in conservative, Christian Republican hands.

According to state law, section 13A-6-1 of the Code of Alabama, for the purposes of homicide, an unborn child is included and defined as a person regardless of stage of development or viability.

If the law goes into effect in six months without being struck down as unconstitutional by the courts, abortion in the state will only be allowed in cases where the mother’s life is in danger. It does not include allowances for rape or incest.

While it does not make the woman criminally culpable, it does makes the physician performing or attempting to perform an abortion criminally liable and doctors could face a possible sentence of up to 99 years to life.

Legislators openly admitted that they knew the bill was unconstitutional under current settled law, Roe v. Wade, but they are gambling with state taxpayer money that the U.S. Supreme Court, now with a new conservative justice named Brett Kavanaugh, may take up the case and overturn the 1973 ruling making Roe the law of the land.

Those are the facts. Now let’s talk about Alabama and the importance of human life in this state, particularly in regard to women and children.

There are 46 hospitals in Alabama that offer obstetrical care for women, but they exist in only 29 of Alabama’s 67 counties, according to Janice Smiley, who directs the perinatal health division of the Bureau of Family Health Services at the Alabama Department of Public Health. So many counties in Alabama don’t have someone trained at every hospital to take care of women during pregnancy.

Many hospitals in rural areas have closed, and of those that have remained open, many have had to shutter or downsize their obstetrical units. As a result, many women are forced to drive farther for both prenatal care and delivery.

Not everyone has the freedom or finances to travel, however, and that means fewer women are getting prenatal care. Or they may put off travel until late in their pregnancies. What’s more, when labor moves quickly, women don’t necessarily make it to the hospital on time.

In addition, Alabama is one of a few states that didn’t elect to expand Medicaid, turning down about $1 billion a year in federal money, primarily for political purposes, not practical budgetary concerns.

And though many women qualify for Medicaid once they are pregnant, the number of bureaucratic hurdles they must clear often postpones care. Or, uninsured women unnecessarily take up space in emergency rooms, where their care ends up costing the state more than it had to.

Maternal deaths in the state are high compared to other states. Alabama ranks 46 out of 50 in maternal mortality rates, and 49.2 pregnancy-related deaths occur per 1,000 live births as of 2017, according to information provided by the state Department of Public Health. A report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows that in 2014, the last year covered in a broad-range study, the average rate nationwide was 18 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Alabama also ranks 50th in infant mortality.

According to a study done by U.S. News and World Report, Alabama ranks last in the 50 states in quality of public education, 44th out of 50 in crime.

This is not sounding like a state that puts a lot of emphasis on the safety, education, health and the well-being of women and children.

But to be fair we should investigate what the Alabama Legislature has been up to in 2019.

In looking over a list of bills that have either been introduced or passed in the 2019 session of the Alabama Legislature, there are bills exempting military personnel from paying fees to carry firearms and from paying taxes, bills to help brewpubs and counties to sell draft and keg beer, a bill to help telecommunications companies use public rights of way for broadband lines, a bill to make medical marijuana legal, and a bill to allow hunters to take white-tailed deer and feral swine by using bait.

There is another bill that would force anyone receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to submit to a mandatory drug test.

So I am seeing a lot of “good old boy” legislation here. We’ve got bills to help put more guns into our society, more beer and pot. Along with the near total ban on abortions, of course, because we are talking old, white, Republican men making decisions here.

Guys, I am just not seeing anything here that pertains to the importance of human life, in particular the betterment of the lives and women and children.

But we know, as women, we know. The abortion bill is not about protecting human life. Look at Alabama’s rankings in maternal mortality, infant mortality, education, healthcare and criminal activity and then compare those rankings to the legislation put forth this term and ask yourselves how they compare.

This is about control. Period. Full Stop.

And the men in the Alabama legislature not only do not care about the lives of women and children, they don’t care about how much money they are wasting in passing this legislation.

The last time that the Alabama legislature tried a test case involving abortion, it cost the state $1.7 million dollars and was declared unconstitutional by the courts.

During the hearing before the final vote, Senator Linda Coleman-Madison broke down for legislator’s what $1.7 million dollars could do to help Alabama. In her impassioned speech, she said the money could provide 33 teachers, 298 tax credit scholarships, 41 new state troopers, 38,000 doses of the medication to reverse opioid overdoses, and/or 267 Medicaid enrollees, and 50 entry level prison guards to assist Alabama’s prisons which are being heavily scrutinized by the Department of Justice for their failure to provide even the most basic of care and services.

The Senator also asked if the bill could be amended to expand Medicaid to allow pregnant young girls or women who were raped or victims of incest to go to another state to obtain an abortion.

“NO,” was the resounding answer from the Republican men in charge of Alabama.

Can the bill be amended to expand Medicaid for victims of rape or incest who become pregnant to obtain proper ob-gyn services within the State of Alabama? “NO!”

And then this. The Senator asked about a possible amendment to address the responsibility of the men involved in rape or incest cases where women or your girls become pregnant. Can we address their part in this and their responsibility and/or any repercussions for them? Silence.

It was at this point in the hearings where all cameras were forced off, all video recordings were terminated. Silence for the men. Silence regarding any responsibility of the men.

Americans have become lazy. We don’t think for ourselves. We don’t read. We don’t research our history. We don’t give any credence to any opinion other than that of the loud majority who tells us what to think and what to say.

The mantra has become “abortion is murder and murder is wrong.” Therefore, abortion must be stopped at all costs.

This is not new. There is a history here. It involves a long history of patriarchal control, control by the church, control by men, even blatant racism. That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it needs to stay, they say.

No money given to help. No programs. No plans. No services. Abortion is murder and murder is wrong, so say the men and the church. The end.

It’s a slippery slope, though. It makes me wonder what the “next mantra” will become. Perhaps, “if we continue to allow women to vote, one day, they are going to decide they want to overturn our archaic, harmful rules. We must take their vote because they could vote to legalize abortion and abortion is murder and murder is wrong.

And then, hmmm, if I allow my wife to just roam freely through the streets, she could talk to another woman and they may talk to other women and they might organize to get their vote back And if they get their vote back, they could legalize abortion and abortion is murder and murder is wrong.

Please think, people. Please become a state and country that researches and learns and remembers history and recalls where we came from. Reproductive healthcare decisions should only be made by a woman, her doctor and perhaps her family, especially, if you as a government body are going to spend more time and more money discussing beer and hunting over baited fields than the safety and the health and well-being of your constituents.

My Story

My mother was 16 years old when she became pregnant with me. She was very abusive, and our relationship was very toxic. She was also raised in a very abusive home, and at 16 upon finding herself pregnant, ran away to the boy who was that father.

His family immediately turned on her, sent her home, refusing to allow him to be part of it or assisting her in anyway. When she returned home, she was beaten, and then forced to marry someone that she barely knew and did not love. This man turned out to also be abusive. He abused her physically and me sexually.

She often told me when I was adult that she hated me, that she wished I had never been born, and that she should have aborted me. Abortion was not legal then and she was deathly afraid of medical procedures anyway, so a back-alley abortion was not something she would never have had the nerve to do.

I am the mother of two amazing sons, and I have also experienced two miscarriages. I have a life that I am grateful for, but even so, I would never have wanted someone to take that choice from my mother. It was hers to make.

She suffered greatly because of her pregnancy and my birth and I would not have begrudged her one moment of peace in her life, if it had been possible for her.

She died a terrible sad death. An alcoholic, face down in her own vomit and body fluids, days before anyone found her, because to her, her pregnancy with me sentenced her to a lifetime of pain and regret she simply could not cope with.

As a victim of incest, I did not become pregnant but the trauma I experienced as a child will be life-long. There is not enough thoughts and prayers, there is no amount of Jesus, there is no amount of therapy, or medication to cure that type of trauma for a child.

Those things help, and life can certainly go on, but it changes a person. And if a young girl experiences a pregnancy because of that or rape, who are 25 white men, who have never experienced any of it, to tell her what to do with her body?

That is between her and her God, her physician and her family.

There are nuances to every woman’s pregnancy journey that men will never understand and should never be given decision-making power over.

It is about control. From the day my biological father’s family decided for my mother, and even centuries before. It always has been and it always will be.

Please, can we become a nation that thinks for ourselves, that researches our history as women, that researches the power of the patriarchy and the church in the lives of women? And can we somehow manage the sense and the compassion to learn how to mind our own business?

We are not Gods.r