Rereading my recent post on a couple recent abortion laws in Illinois and Alabama, I realize I was unclear about why, exactly, the Alabama law bothers me.
It isn't only the law's draconian penalties or its absence of almost any exceptions. Those are concerning features, and I'd call them cartoonish if they weren't so scary and the stakes weren't so high.
Rather, it's the fact that the Alabama law signals a real possibility that Roe v. Wade will be overturned. It's obviously meant to create a test case, and the reason it's plausibly a test case is that the Supreme Court is at a point where it might plausibly overturn Roe. Because overturning Roe is possible now in a way that it hasn't been at least since the Casey decision (and as it turns out, more plausible now than then), I am compelled to clarify my own stance in favor of access to legal abortion. Even though I am deeply conflicted about that stance, the Alabama law compels me to take sides in a way I haven't had to before.
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