Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, is adamant that the abortion ban law she sponsored will not be used to prosecute girls who have abortions. However, Alabama has a record of manipulating laws to favor prosecuting pregnant women, one expert says. Farah Diaz-Tello, a legal professional at If When How, a felony advocacy group for reproductive rights, stated that on its face, the law is not relevant to people who cease their pregnancies or go through miscarriages. However, it does provide fodder for prosecutors who are already seeking to prosecute pregnant human beings for the outcomes of their pregnancies.
Alabama passed the “chemical endangerment of an infant” statute in 2006 in reaction to the country’s methamphetamine disaster. The statute changed into intended to protect kids whose dad and mom turned their garages or kitchens into at-domestic meth labs. But inside months, prosecutors commenced using the statute to prosecute girls who uncovered their embryo or fetus to a managed substance in utero, and charging them with one to 10 years in jail if the child suffers no ill results, 10 to twenty years if the child suggests signs of exposure or damage and 10 to ninety-nine years if the toddler dies.
“Chemical endangerment wasn’t written to use on pregnant people or fetuses,” Diaz-Tello said. “It changed into now not meant to lock up women. But prosecutors used it in that manner. And the courtroom used their not unusual law power and changed the definition.” Diaz-Tello said she could foresee a comparable state of affairs with the Alabama abortion ban regulation, where a politically-prompted prosecutor could use a similar argument with the chemical-endangerment statute to prosecute someone who had a miscarriage that they deemed suspicious.
Attorneys for one girl charged with chemical endangerment for drug use in pregnancy challenged the translation of the regulation, but the Alabama Supreme Court upheld prosecutors’ interpretation in 2013. Current Chief Justice Tom Parker, in his time an accomplice justice, wrote most of the majority opinion and a concurring opinion, if so, making the argument that fetuses have felony rights.
In 2015, AL.com and ProPublica found 479 women who were charged with chemical endangerment. One lady was sentenced to 10 years in jail after she substituted her epilepsy medication, which her health practitioner said ought to damage her infant in utero, with marijuana. Her infant was examined tremendous in the clinic. In an analysis of 500 cases, AL.Com/ProPublica discovered that most police reviews mentioned marijuana because of the drug used during pregnancy.
“People are already being prosecuted for the results in their pregnancies [in Alabama],” Diaz-Tello stated. “What this regulation does is afford more fodder for a prosecutor who wants to punish people for finishing a pregnancy.”UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) also observes this day every year. Say No-UNiTE to End Violence against Women is a global call for action launched in November 2009 on ending violence against women and girls. It is presented by UNIFEM as a contribution to advance the objectives of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women through social mobilization.
However, from the year 1981, women activists have been observing November 25 as the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women. On 20 December 1993, the General Assembly adopted the ‘Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. November 25 has its own story and significance. This date was taken in memory of the Mirabal sisters, political activists of the Dominican Republic, who were brutally assassinated on November 25, 1960, on the orders of the ruler of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo. The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women also launches the 16 Days of Activism and campaign against Gender Violence, which runs from November 25 through 10 December, Human Rights Day.
