The Republican War on Women: Alabama Wants Custody of Unborn

Alabama District Attorney Chris Connolly 

This is the thirty-first in a series of articles on the subjects of women, abortion rights and the Republican Party. 

Republicans continue to say they don’t have to change their core principles, they only have to change the language they use to get their message out.  One perception they want to alter is the idea that they are running a “War on Women”.  Looking at the news over the past few years, I’d say the Republican Party has a long way to go on this subject.

• Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky): “Talk about a manufactured issue.  There is no issue.” 
• RNC Chairman Reince Priebus:  “It’s a fiction.”

The Alabama Front

the facts and commentary:  Abortion opponents have tried many tactics to stand between women and their abortion rights.  We've seen states require invasive ultrasound requirements and unnecessary waiting periods.  We've seen states pass laws that force women to sit through right-to-life lectures or that require abortion doctors to lie to women who come to them for abortion services.  There have even been attempts to enact "permission slip laws" that would require a woman to have a man's signature before she could exercise her right to a legal abortion.  

Alabama District Attorney Chris Connolly wants to push the anti-abortion envelope even further.  Mr. Connolly, who recently changed his political affiliation from Democrat to Republican, has filed a petition to terminate an incarcerated woman's parental rights.  The catch is that this woman has not yet given birth.

The inmate, identified only as Jane Doe, wants an abortion, which is her legal right under federal law, and has filed a lawsuit asking for a furlough in order to terminate her unwanted pregnancy.

The woman is in jail under a drug charge, specifically chemical endangerment of a child.  A 2013 Alabama Supreme Court ruling allows this charge to be made against the mother of an unborn child and Mr. Connolly believes that gives the state the right to take "custody" of the fetus and to protect it to full term.

--Given the Republican Party appetency for cutting all social assistance programs, I wonder if the right-wing attorney will expect the baby to care for itself after it is born .

Mr. Connolly told a Huntsville newspaper, "Our position, if the termination for parental rights is granted, is that (she) would not have standing to obtain the abortion."  

This is the first time the state of Alabama has tried this tactic to prevent an abortion. 

--If they're successful, expect other Republican led states to follow their example. No conservative legislature wants to be seen as falling behind in the anti-abortion weapons contest.

Alabama ACLU legal director Randall Marshall said, "It appears to me that what the state is attempting to do is turn Jane Doe into a vessel, and control every aspect of her life."

--District Attorney Connolly seems to think that once a woman becomes pregnant she ceases to hold full citizenship and instead becomes a "thing" to be controlled by the political classes.

It is as though the state of Alabama is taking legal guidance from Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale."

Is this really the world we want our daughters to inherit? 

The Republican War on Women is "fiction?"

WHAT YOU DO SPEAKS SO LOUDLY

THAT I CANNOT HEAR WHAT YOU SAY.

Addendum: The inmate has withdrawn her petition.  It is unclear whether the state's actions were the catalyst for her decision.  In her statement she wrote, "After much consideration and counsel, I...have decided that I no longer desire to pursue an abortion procedure and intend to carry the unborn child to full term and birth."