The group of white, male Alabama state senators who voted to pass a law on Tuesday that bans nearly all abortions in the state, including in cases of rape and incest, are facing viral criticism online.
Late Tuesday, 25 out of the Alabama Senate’s 27 Republicans voted to pass the bill by a 25-6 margin. The legislation, called the Human Life Protection Act, would make abortion a crime punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison for doctors who perform the procedure, with exceptions only for cases to save a mother’s life.
{mosads}Since the bill’s passage on Tuesday evening, a number of activists and Twitter users have come out against the measure, while also noting the gender and race of the Republicans who voted in favor of the bill.
“These 25 white men — all Republicans — just voted to ban abortion in Alabama,” Col. Morris D. Davis, who previously served as the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay during the George W. Bush administration, said in a tweet.
“I lived in Alabama for 7+ years. No place cherishes its bigotry and ignorance like Alla-Damn-Bama,” he continued. “Shame that @MercedesBenz and @Hyundai chose to locate there.”
Nahanni Fontaine, who currently serves as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba in Canada, called the bill’s passage “some backwards, archaic, intentionally repressive crap.”
“These 25 men, who will never be pregnant, just legislated more rights to rapists than to women, girls & victims of rape/incest,” she said.
A number of other tweets calling out the group of exclusively white male legislators have also gone viral. The anti-abortion legislation now heads to Gov. Kay Ivey’s (R) desk for her signature. Ivey has not said publicly whether she will sign the bill.