Even Pat Robertson can be right occasionally, just like that old stopped clock. Wednesday, he was definitely on the money when he warned the forced-birth zealots about where their Alabama abortion ban is likely to go, now that Governor Kay Ivey has signed it into law.
“I think Alabama has gone too far,” Robertson warned. “In my humble view, this is not the case we want to bring to the Supreme Court because I think we’ll lose.”
He's right. They will, because so many aspects of their ban are unconstitutional. Prosecuting doctors is problematic in itself, given HIPAA laws. Who will rat out the docs, and will those rats pay for violating patients' privacy?
Simplistic lawmakers in Alabama believe it will reach the Supreme Court on the basis of personhood alone, without any thought to how patients' privacy rights are violated under existing law with regard not only to abortion, but every other form of birth control available.
"The heart of this bill is to confront a decision that was made by the courts in 1973 that said the baby in the womb is not a person," the sponsor of the bill, Terri Collins, said last week. "This bill addresses that one issue. Is that baby in the womb a person? I believe our law says it is."
This, in a state that routinely starves poor children, does nothing to assist poor mothers who choose to give birth. It's almost like the personhood of a fetus matters more than one of a child born. So yes, the law is extreme. And it is unconstitutional, just like the other bans. But sure, Alabama. Take your woman-hating Gilead bill all the way to SCOTUS to keep your "evangelical" base hungry and angry.
Like Robertson said, you'll lose.
