WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th May, 2019) The new law of the US state of Alabama that will ban nearly all abortions there would have the biggest impact on the most economically disadvantaged people, experts told Sputnik.
On Wednesday, Alabama governor Kay Ivey signed into law the abortion bill - the strictest in the United States - that could punish doctors who perform abortions with life in prison.
POOR, BLACK WOMEN MOSTLY AT RISK OVER NEW LEGISLATION
"If Alabama's new law is enacted, the situation ... will return the burden of needless death to poor, particularly black women, who already suffer from one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the USA. It will also raise the already high rate of childhood death in the state," Doctor Philip Barney, the research professor at the University of California, San Francisco told Sputnik.
Ivey said in a statement accompanying the signing of the bill that the law may be unenforceable due to the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion in all 50 states. The Alabama law, however, aims to challenge that decision, Ivey noted.
"Many Americans, myself included, disagreed when Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973 ... The sponsors of this bill believe that it is time, once again, for the US Supreme Court to revisit this important matter, and they believe this act may bring about the best opportunity for this to occur," Ivey said in the statement, commenting on the Alabama bill.
WOMEN TO RELY ON UNSAFE ABORTIONS
Dr. Barney, who worked in the Alabama Department of Public Health prior to the legalization of abortion in the state, cited its leading obstetrician at the time, Professor Charles Flowers, as saying that unsafe abortions were the greatest threat to women's health. Barney noted that this might once again be the case if the anti-abortion law passed the Supreme Court.
"Poor women will again be forced to rely on badly done abortions that risk their lives unless the physicians of the state are willing to disobey the law and invite the state to imprison them for life," Barney stated.
The doctor's position was echoed by the Gretchen Ely, the professor at the State University of New York, who stated that women who could not access resources needed to travel to other states for the procedure would be unable to get safe and legal surgical abortions.
"This will mean their only options would be: carrying unwanted pregnancies to term, seeking illegal/unsafe abortions in their geographic areas of residence, or trying to obtain medication to manage abortions at home without medical supervision," Ely told Sputnik.
In addition to health risks associated with unsupervised abortion, the new law, if it goes into effect, would have profound implications on women who choose to continue an unwanted pregnancy, Dr. Sarah Roberts, the associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, told Sputnik.
"[R]esearch about the impact of being denied an abortion finds that women unable to obtain abortions are tethered to violent men, experience more economic insecurity, and have more short-term physical health complications," Roberts said.
Even if Roe v. Wade is overturned on the Federal level, it would not restrict abortion access nation-wide. Instead, it would return the control of the issue to the individual states, potentially creating large regions in the United States where abortion would be unavailable, Dr. Ely stated, noting that bills similar to the one in Alabama were currently being proposed in other states like Georgia and Indiana.
