Planned Parenthood Southeast along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of abortion providers challenging Alabama’s law that bans nearly all abortions.
The ban, deemed the most restrictive in the nation, includes pregnancies as a result of rape or incest and punishes doctors who perform abortions with up to 99 years in prison. Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill into law less than 24 hours after the bill passed in the State Senate last week. The law would go into affect in November.
“Alabama’s state motto is audemus jura nostra defendere, which means ‘we dare defend our rights.’ That’s exactly what we’re doing here today,” Staci Fox, President and CEO at Planned Parenthood Southeast, stated in a press release. “Abortion has been safe and legal in this country for more than 45 years and we aim to keep it that way. We are protecting the rights of our patients. We are defending the work of the brave folks who came before us. And we are fighting to take this country forward, not backwards.”
The plaintiffs include Alabama’s three abortion clinics, Alabama Women’s Center, Reproductive Health Services, and the West Alabama Women’s Center.
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