WATCH: Jon Stewart Ridicules Alabama Law Providing Lawyers for Fetuses

Janet Allon
and
 AlterNet
January 16, 2015

Jon Stewart's Jessica Williams traveled to civil-rights loving Alabama for a segment on a bizarre and dangerous law that allocates state funds to provide lawyers for the fetuses of women seeking abortions. Williams plays the fool in order to highlight the absurdly backward thinking behind the law. "So, you get a call from a fetus seeking legal representation . . ." she asks a fetus lawyer. "How do you know the fetus is innocent?"

The A.C.L.U. is adamantly fighting this thinly disguised ruse to deprive women of the right to an abortion. It is especially aimed at teenagers, who already must get the consent of their parents to terminate a pregnancy. The law enables the fetus' lawyer to call the boyfriend, the boyfriend's parents, the basketball coach, whomever, to testify. The lawyer can also just run out the clock making unwanted motherhood the only choice.

All this in a state that is totally broke, and in which many poor adult defendants cannot get legal representation.

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