Planned Parenthood, ACLU Sue Alabama over Abortion Law

Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a federal lawsuit Friday challenging a new law in Alabama that bans most abortions in the state, save those to prevent a serious health risk to the mother.

The law reclassifies abortion as a Class A felony, punishable by up to 99 years in prison for abortionists. Women who undergo an abortion, however, would not be criminally liable.

The complaint was filed in the United States District Court of the Middle District of Alabama.

In a joint press statement, Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said Alabama’s Human Life Protection Act is “blatantly unconstitutional.”

“The Alabama legislature has been pushing abortion care further and further out of reach for years with medically unnecessary and politically-motivated restrictions, and this extreme abortion ban shows us just how far they’ll go to push their anti-abortion agenda,” she said, adding “the ACLU will not stand by while politicians emboldened by President Trump’s anti-abortion agenda exploit our health and our lives for political gain.”

Dr. Leana Wen, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called the Alabama law “dangerous” and “immoral.”