MONTGOMERY, Alabama (LifeSiteNews) — Alabama’s attorney general said that the state’s law against “chemical endangerment” could be used against women who obtain abortion drugs through the mail or a local pharmacy.
Attorney General Steve Marshall’s statement comes after President Joe Biden’s administration changed federal regulations to allow CVS, Walgreens, and other pharmacies to distribute chemical abortion drugs.
“The Human Life Protection Act targets abortion providers, exempting women ‘upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed’ from liability under the law,” Marshall told AL.com. “It does not provide an across-the-board exemption from all criminal laws, including the chemical-endangerment law—which the Alabama Supreme Court has affirmed and reaffirmed protects unborn children.”
The 2006 chemical endangerment law began as a way to punish people who expose children to toxic fumes from meth labs, but has been used against women who intentionally took drugs to kill their babies, according to AL.com.
The law states:
A person commits the crime of chemical endangerment of exposing a child to an environment in which controlled substances are produced or distributed if he/she is a responsible person and knowingly, recklessly, or intentionally causes or permits a child to be exposed to, to ingest or inhale, or to have contact with a controlled substance, chemical substance, or drug paraphernalia.
“District attorneys soon began applying the law to protect the fetuses of women who used various drugs during pregnancy. Justices on the Alabama Supreme Court upheld and affirmed prosecutions of pregnant people in 2013 and 2014,” AL.com reported.
Students for Life Action (SFL Action) has previously criticized the nationwide push by the Biden administration to make RU-486 drugs widely available.
“Making Chemical Abortion Pills accessible at your local pharmacy is certainly not the product of the ‘safe, legal, and rare’ lie we were fed as we fought for the reversal of Roe,” SFL Action President Kristan Hawkins stated. “The objective of this Administration has always been increased access to dangerous drugs.”