2 of Alabama’s 3 Largest Abortion Sites May be Forced to Close
Protests at Huntsville abortion site 5.5.16
Rev. James Henderson speaks to reporters outside the Alabama Women’s Center, LLC in Huntsville while being videoed by one of the abortion business’ escorts.
Two of Alabama’s three largest abortion facilities may be forced to close because of a bill passed Wednesday by the state legislature and expected to be signed into law by Gov. Robert Bentley.
Abortion sites in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa are located within 2,000 feet of public schools grades K-8, which will break the law if Bentley signs Senate bill 205 into law.
The two businesses performed 5,927 abortions in 2014 (the most recent statistics available), according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. Those clinics performed 72 percent of the 8,080 abortions in the state in 2014.
The Huntsville site is across the street from Academy for Academics and Arts, a K-8 school, on Sparkman Drive and the Tuscaloosa site is located near Tuscaloosa Magnet elementary (grades 1-5) and middle schools (grades 6-8) on McFarland Boulevard.
The ACLU on Thursday reiterated its stance that it will take legal action if the bill is signed into law as well as another abortion-related bill.
“With precious little time remaining in the legislative session, and in the face of so many issues facing the state, Alabama’s elected officials today chose to focus on attacking women’s healthcare,” said Susan Watson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama. “We know that restrictions like these only endanger the health and safety of Alabama women.”
In Huntsville on Thursday, Rev. James Henderson met with reporters on the public sidewalk outside the Alabama Women’s Center, LLC while abortion client escorts attempted to shout down his talking points.
“This is a great day for the children of Huntsville across the street (in the school) and across the state,” Henderson said. “No longer will the children be exposed to the anger and the obscenities and the hostilities, the emotional distress” of attending school near the clinic and protestors.
Abortion client escorts listened in as Henderson spoke to reporters and shouted “lies” and “liar” as he spoke.
Henderson said he will ask Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange as well as the state’s Congressional delegation to seek to have U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson to recuse himself should an expected lawsuit be brought if Bentley signs the bills into law. [Bentley has signed the bills.]
Henderson said Thompson has “ruled 100 percent in the past against bills like this one. He has always taken the pro-abortion position. We think he should recuse himself.”
Asked if he had reason to believe such an effort would be successful, Henderson said he did not know but that he expected Strange to make the request.
Speaking of the 2,000 foot bill, Henderson said Bentley is expected to sign it into law.
“We asked him to make it one of his preferred bills to pass the legislature and he did,” Henderson said. “There’s no doubt in our mind he will sign it.”
If the Sparkman Drive abortion site is closed, it will be the second abortion facility to close in Huntsville in the past two years. The clinic on Madison Street near downtown Huntsville relocated in 2014 to the Sparkman Drive location when the legislature passed a law in 2013 requiring abortion sites to meet the same building safety code standards as ambulatory surgical centers.
“It disturbs me that a person has tried to abide by the law, and still gets penalized,” Rep. Laura Hall, D-Huntsville, told the Associated Press. “It is unfair for an individual to meet the demands of a law that we passed and when they moved, we create another law to put them basically out of business.”
[ Paul Gattis, May 05, 2016, Video and article at: http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/05/2_of_alabamas_3_largest_aborti.html#incart_2box ]
Alabama Legislature Passes Bill to Ban Dismemberment Abortions, Signed by Governor
Alabama is the latest state where a pro-life piece of legislation to ban dismemberment abortions is advancing and yesterday the legislature approved a bill to make it the 5th state to ban the grisly abortion procedure.
The law would follow on the heels of states like Kansas and Oklahoma as well as Mississippi and Louisiana — where bans have been approved or are advancing through the legislature.