Alabama Denying Prisoner an Abortion

An Alabama jail inmate in her first trimester of pregnancy is seeking to get an abortion, but may have her parental rights revoked by the state to stop it. "Jane Doe" was told she would need to obtain a court order in order to have the procedure since it is “elective” and not an emergency. Doe immediately filed for an order from a federal district court (after a state court immediately denied her order). Alabama has since appointed a guardian to the fetus and is determined to use a "chemical endangerment of a child" statue, originally enacted to keep children from contaminated areas like meth labs, to stop the abortion. "It appears to me that what the state is attempting to do is turn Jane Doe into a vessel, and control every aspect of her life, forcing her to give birth to a baby, which she has decided she does not want to do," Alabama ACLU’s legal director Randall Marshall said.