While pro-abortion supporters across the country have complained Alabama’s recently signed into law “Human Life Protection Act” is “anti-women,” some of these same individuals have apparently threatened at least one of the state’s pro-life legislators’ wife with rape over the abortion ban.
State Sen. Garlan Gudger, (R-Cullman), is among those who voted in favor of HB 314, afterwards praising Governor Kay Ivey for signing the bill. Alabama’s new law, which was always expected to be blocked by a federal court before it would take effect in November, would ban abortions except when the life of the mother is in danger. HB 314 would criminalize doctors, not women, by making it a Class A felony to perform an abortion and a Class C felony to attempt an abortion.
Proponents of the legislation have explained the bill is intended to be a “vehicle” to get the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade on the basis of personhood, actually using the exact language from that infamous court decision in the legislation.
The sponsor of the bill, State Rep. Terri Collins (R-Decatur), has outlined that the question at hand is whether the baby in the womb, or “in utero” legally speaking, is a person and should have rights as such.
Gudger, according to The Cullman Times, released a statement after the bill was signed into law emphasizing that very fact.
“I am a pro-life voice for my district. I believe that abortion is murder, and I voted according to my convictions on HB314,” Gudger said. “People have asked me why I did not support adding the amendment regarding rape and incest to this bill. If I would have voted to add these exceptions to the bill, there would arise a fallacy in our own argument to defend the pro-life stance, because an unborn baby is a person who deserves protection, even in the most difficult of circumstances.”
However, national media outlets like NBC, MSNBC and CNN (as well as most in-state outlets) have not reported on HB 314 as intentionally being the legal tool that it is. Instead, panic has been drummed up as people falsely made outlandish claims, such as that the law would put women in jail for up to 99 years or that the legislation legalizes rape and incest.
Of course, along with this type of activist coverage, many of Alabama’s Republican state legislators have been singled out. Unfortunately, this type of targeted media fervor has real effects on audience members.
Take, for example, Gudger being mentioned last week on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”
After the media circus that has unfolded around the abortion ban law, Gudger told Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal” in recent days that he and his family have received threats.
As reported by Yellowhammer News contributor Jeff Poor for Breitbart, Gudger outlined, “Overall, it’s been tough.”
“It’s been tough dealing with the balancing of my wife and my children being attacked,” Gudger continued. “I obviously don’t like that part. No one should be attacked or threatened with harm for a difference of opinion. But overall, I’m doing well — besides that.”
He then told host Don Dailey the specifics of those threats.
“People have contacted my 15-year-old son on Snapchat and social media,” Gudger explained. “My wife had been contacted that they were going to break into our house and rape and do other things to her. It’s been a lot of stress at our household — and a lot of the other colleagues on the floor the same way. It’s something we have to deal with, and we’re dealing with it.”
Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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