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News > U.S.

Backlash Against Alabama Abortion Ruling Calls for Boycotts

  • Pro-choice supporters protest in front of the Alabama State House as Alabama state Senate votes on the strictest anti-abortion bill in the United States at the Alabama Legislature in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. May 14, 2019.

    Pro-choice supporters protest in front of the Alabama State House as Alabama state Senate votes on the strictest anti-abortion bill in the United States at the Alabama Legislature in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. May 14, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

Published 17 May 2019
Opinion

“The radical anti-abortion bill signed into law yesterday by the Governor of Alabama is a malicious assault on the rights... of women,” Franchot wrote.

Backlash against the near-ban on abortion in Alabama is gaining momentum as state governments are banning official travel and divestments in the southern state.

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On Friday, the lower house of the Missouri General Assembly passed a bill Friday to prohibit women from seeking an abortion after the eighth week of pregnancy, days after Alabama enacted the most restrictive abortion law in the United States.

In reaction to Alabama's law that abortion procedures were a felony with no exceptions in the cases of rape or incest, Colorado’s Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold called for a boycott of Alabama until the measure, the most restrictive within the United States, is overturned.

“I’m calling for a boycott of Alabama. Until Alabama allows for safe & legal access to health care for women, I will not authorize spending of state resources on travel to Alabama,” tweeted the Colorado state authority Thursday.

Griswold said Colorado state employees regularly travel to Auburn, Alabama to attend the Certified Election Registration Administrator (CERA) training and certification.

“I will not authorize the spending of state resources on travel to Alabama for this training or any other purpose,” Griswold said. “This is one action that I can take in response to this egregious law against women,” she said in a statement.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told The Denver Post he is not promoting a boycott but he condemns the new law.

“Alabama’s rolling back of a woman’s right to choose is an existential threat to our personal freedom,” Polis’s office said. “The governor will always defend a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions.”

Maryland’s Democratic Comptroller Peter Franchot is calling for the state’s US$52 billion pension fund to divest from Alabama, and urged other states to do the same.

“The radical anti-abortion bill signed into law yesterday by the Governor of Alabama is a malicious assault on the rights and protections of women,” Franchot wrote on Facebook. “I can work to ensure that Maryland’s taxpayer dollars are not used to subsidize extremism.”

The hashtag #BoycottAlabama is trending, with activists calling for boycotts of products ranging from Mercedes-Benz cars to broiler chickens that are produced in Alabama.

Alabama is the latest state to all but ban abortion with measures unconstitutional under current federal law meant to send the issue back to the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its 1973 ruling that allows women to terminate their pregnancy within the first trimester and under special conditions during her second.

After Georgia passed a similarly restrictive state abortion law last week Actor Jason Bateman who current films two shows in the state told the Hollywood Reporter, “If the ‘heartbeat bill’ makes it through the court system, I will not work in Georgia, or any other state, that is so disgracefully at odds with women’s rights.”

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Self-described “transracial KAD in the Deep South” who is also Communication Director at @ACLUAlabama, Rebecca Seung Bickley, on the other hand, asked the public via Twitter to not boycott Alabama but to rather invest in Alabama and try to change make political change against similar abortion laws in other states. “So please. Don’t boycott Alabama. Support Alabama. We need your help, too,” stated Bickley.

In a twitter thread, Bickley called on people to communicate to their “Congressional reps (and) go to them and demand that they support the Women’s Health Protection Act which would ensure that states like AL can’t continue to pass unconstitutional laws like this.”

Bickley, whose tweets are “my own” asked for people to not boycott Alabama, “Instead, do the opposite. Invest in the South. Send your money to the organizations like @YellowFund and @POWERHouseAla here today because they are the ones who are working day after day to ensure that every person in Alabama who needs an abortion can get one.”  

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