Alabama’s governor has signed the most stringent abortion ban in the nation, and even noted evangelist Pat Robertson is calling it “extreme.”
Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed the measure today.
The law will make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by 10 to 99 years or life in prison.
The new law does not include an exception for rape or incest.
Critics, including the ACLU, have promised a swift lawsuit to challenge it.
This is the most direct threat to Roe v Wade in nearly 50 years, and will likely be revisited by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Television evangelist Pat Robertson, who ran for the GOP nomination for president in 1988, called it “an extreme law” and said that it will most likely be overturned by the Supreme Court.
“I think Alabama has gone too far, they’ve passed a law that would give a 99-year prison sentence to those who commit abortions,” said Robertson. “There’s no exception for rape or incest. It’s an extreme law and they want to challenge Roe v. Wade, but my humble view is that this is not the case we want to bring to the Supreme Court because I think this one will lose.”
Last week, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law the state’s so-called “fetal heartbeat” bill, a measure that will prohibit abortions after a heartbeat is detected in an embryo, which is typically five to six weeks into a pregnancy, and before most women know that they’re pregnant.
The state was the sixth to pass such a law, and the fourth this year alone.
In previous years the Supreme Court declined to hear such cases.
But a new ideological makeup on the nation’s highest court, including the recent appointment of conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, has emboldened anti-abortion activists to try again.