Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, the Democrat from Mobile who has sponsored two bills this session expanding access to abortion in Alabama, said Tuesday she does not expect the bills to pass, but filed them for awareness.

“I don’t expect these bills to go anywhere. Not in this legislature as it is made up today,” Figures said, referring to the Republican dominated group of lawmakers in a news conference. “But in light of the fact that Roe vs. Wade was struck down by the United States Supreme Court on June 24, 2022, giving the states the right to enact laws in regards to a woman’s right to choose, I thought it was apropos to let this legislature know that women are still crying out loudly to have the right to choose what they want to do with their bodies.”

Her two bills are:

• SB34, which would repeal the Human Life Protection Act – the strictest anti-abortion law in the United States when it was enacted in 2019. The act prohibits abortion in Alabama, except in cases where a patient’s life is at risk — though the definition of “at risk” is still not clearly defined by the legislature or the attorney general.
• SB35, which would allow pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest to be terminated. Should it pass, Figures said she and her colleagues would have to revisit how those cases would be proven.

“We need to deal with it very delicately, because as you know, those are two subject areas that many times women don’t even report because of how they’re treated and nobody would ever believe them,” Figures said in response to the potential exceptions.

Sen. Merika Coleman, a Democrat from Birmingham, spoke in favor of the bills and said she attempted to add exceptions for rape and incest in 2019, but a House colleague told her they could only vote for her amendment if it solely addressed rape.

“One of my colleagues came to me after the amendment failed and said ‘If rape would have been in the amendment alone, I could have supported your amendment. But who am I to say anything about kissing cousins?’” Coleman said. “So that lets you know we have some education to do in the Alabama legislature. That was a sitting House member then and a current House member now.”

Figures and Coleman were joined by Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison (D-Birmingham), Sen. Kirk Hatcher (D-Montgomery) and Sen. Robert Stewart (D-Selma), all of whom were co-sponsors of SB34.

“I have three sisters of my own, but they are not just my sisters or someone’s sister. They are somebody, and it’s time for this state to put their money where their mouth is,” Stewart said.

Coleman described a trip she took to El Salvador with legislators from other states in 2019, where she said they visited women who were in prison for having abortions. Many had miscarriages, she said, and one in particular was abused and her child died as a result; she was placed in prison. Coleman said it served as a warning for the direction the state could go in.

“For my colleagues who say that they are pro-life: If you are pro-life, that means you are pro-social services for those children once they get here, adequately educating them once they get here, in addition to making sure that their parents are gainfully employed once they get here, and if you’re not for that, then that just means you’re pro-birth,” Coleman said. “You’re not pro-life.”

The Senate will convene again for the second meeting following the 2023 special session on March 22, 2023 at 3:00 P.M.