'I don't feel safe': Alabama newspapers publish letters by women on abortion ban

Three local publications devoted their Sunday editions to essays from women, ranging from fear to grappling with personal beliefs

Adrian Horton in New York
Mon 20 May 2019 23.02 BST Last modified on Mon 20 May 2019 23.03 BST

Three major Alabama newspapers devoted their Sunday editions to letters from women across the state, offering an expansive look into the reactions after a nearly all-male state legislature passed the nation’s strictest abortion ban last week.

The Alabama Media Group, which operates the Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times and the Mobile Press-Register, filled their Sunday papers with 200 essays from Alabama women of various backgrounds, ages and political leanings. The essays were also available as a package online under the title “It’s time to hear Alabama’s women”.

Though the state was “the talk of the nation last week”, wrote Alabama Media Group’s vice-president, Kelly Ann Scott, in an introduction to the series, “missing from many of those conversations were the voices of women from this state”.

Scott continued that in less than 24 hours, more than 200 Alabama women wrote in with their perspectives.

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“They are women who live here, and some who have left,” she said. “Those who have prayed for this very law, and those who now live in fear. Mothers, trying to understand the message this law sends to their daughters and sons. And women who are angry that a majority of men in the state legislature spoke for them.”

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