Alabama Voters Support Rights of Unborn Life, and Support Ten Commandments to Display on Public Properties

Alabama voters have approved two amendments to its constitution, regarding the display of the Ten Commandments on public property and the sanctity of unborn life.

The majority 71.8 percent of voters in Alabama supported the “Alabama Ten Commandments Amendment, Amendment 1,” meaning they are letting the state constitution allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed on public property, which includes public schools and government buildings.

This would mean that the Ten Commandments can be shown on public property as long as it is in a way that “complies with constitutional requirements,” such as being posted alongside historical documents.

The amendment was on the ballot in Alabama on Nov. 6 as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment, which means that Alabama lawmakers opted to put the decision before voters.

“Do the people of Alabama want to acknowledge God, the God of the Old and New Testament, the Christian God? Do we want to acknowledge the God that our nation was founded upon?” said Dean Young, chairman of the Ten Commandments Amendment political action committee, AP reported.

Young said he had been fighting for the amendment for 17 years.

“Alabamians will vote, they will reckon on that day with God how they vote on this, that’s how serious this is,” Young said previously, AP reported. “Either we stand for God or we won’t.”

Supporters of Amendment 1 say it will encourage schools and towns to post the Ten Commandments. One promoter, Dean Young, says the amendment sends a message that Alabama wants to “acknowledge God,” the Associated Press reported.

The amendment will also add to the state’s constitution the following three statements about religious rights:

1. “Every person shall be at liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his or her own conscience.”
2. “No person shall be compelled to attend, or, against his or her consent, to contribute to the erection or support of any place of religious worship, or to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for the support of any minister of the gospel.”
3. “The civil and political rights, privileges, and capacities of no person shall be diminished or enlarged on account of his or her religious belief.”

Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore during election night in Montgomery, Alabama on Dec. 12, 2017. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The support for the amendment comes more than a decade after Roy Moore, the chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court at the time, refused to follow a court order to remove a 5,280-pound stone slab of the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the state judicial building in Montgomery in 2003. Following this, Moore was ousted by state judicial authorities.

He previously unveiled the stone in August 2001 without prior knowledge of the other justices in the Alabama Supreme Court.

Moore was the Republican nominee in Nov. 2017 in the Senate special election in Alabama to fill the seat that had been vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but lost to Doug Jones (D). In the same month, nine women accused him of sexual misconduct, allegations that he has denied.

Randall Marshall of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama said the amendment doesn’t signify any major change, because the displays have to follow certain constitutional restrictions, according to AP.

Unborn Babies’ Right to Life

In Alabama, 58.9 percent of voters said, “Yes” on Nov. 6 to Alabama State Abortion Policy Amendment 2. This adds wording to the state’s 1901 constitution to say it that will “recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.”

The amendment changes here do not affect the public’s access to abortion in the United States. However, the amendments would become the states’ top legal guidance if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to overturn or change the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The Roe v. Wade ruling made it legal to have an abortion nationwide by prohibiting states from banning abortions prior to when the fetus is deemed “viable,” that is, potentially able to live outside its mother’s womb.

The amendment will also “ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child in all manners and measures lawful and appropriate.”

Furthermore, it states, “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion.”

In West Virginia, 51.7 percent of voters approved to add the same above phrase to its state constitution on Nov. 6.

Alliance for a Pro-Life Alabama was the one committee that had registered in support of the amendment in Alabama, and had raised almost $8,000 and spent only $303.45 on its campaign, according to Ballotpedia.

Planned Parenthood was the top donor to the committees that campaigned against the amendment in Alabama. It had donated $1.38 million in total to Alabama for Healthy Families and Alabama Students Voting No on Amendment 2, according to Ballotpedia. 

In West Virginia, there was no known group that had registered in opposition to the amendment. A group called West Virginians for Life had led the campaign to support the amendment. It reported receiving about $9,300 in cash contributions, and spent $7,300 in cash, according to Ballotpedia.

From NTD News