2020 White House hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) reacted to the Alabama State Senate’s passage of what would be the country’s strictest abortion law, calling it “dangerous and exceptionally cruel.”
“This ban is dangerous and exceptionally cruel—and the bill’s authors want to use it to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Warren wrote on Twitter following the bill’s passage on Tuesday. “I’ve lived in that America and let me tell you: We are not going back—not now, not ever. We will fight this. And we will win”
The Alabama State Senate voted 25-6 to pass the bill, which criminalizes all abortions except for when the life of the mother is at risk. It institutes a 10- to 99-year prison sentence for doctors who perform an abortion and 1- to 10-year sentence for doctors who attempt to do so.
Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has not said whether she will sign the bill. Her office said late Tuesday she will examine the proposal carefully.
“The governor intends to withhold comment until she has had a chance to thoroughly review the final version of the bill that passed,” stated spokeswoman Lori Jhons.
The bill’s sponsor, Alabama House Rep. Terri Collins, said legislators crafted the bill specifically to address language in the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on Roe vs. Wade that mentions a baby being “in utero.”
“This bill’s purpose is to hopefully get to the Supreme Court and have them revisit the actual decision, which was: is the baby in a womb a person?” Collins said.
The bill passed the House by a vote of 73-3 last month, with nearly all Democrats leaving the chamber in protest before the vote. The Senate was on course to pass it last week, until an argument broke out on the chamber floor and the vote was postponed.
The UPI contributed to this report
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