Republicans Wanted Groups like Planned Parenthood to Sue Over Alabama’s Abortion Ban. They Just Did.

Planned Parenthood and the ACLU sued Alabama Friday over the state’s near-total abortion ban — which is exactly what Alabama Republicans wanted. It’s the first step in what promises to be a long legal battle over whether to let the ban go into effect.

Under Alabama’s law, abortions would only be allowed if a pregnancy posed a “serious health risk” to the mother. There are no exceptions for rape or incest, and abortion providers could spend up to 99 years in prison for performing the procedure.

If that sounds unconstitutionally severe, Republicans engineered the law that way: Its backers wanted to force abortion rights advocates to sue, so that the law could be used as a vehicle to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.