Update: Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed into law a bill protecting the unborn from abortions but in the case of serious risk of death or injury to the mother. It is considered the most restrictive — or most life preserving — abortion law in the nation. 

Alabama’s legislature passed a bill Tuesday night that will ban abortion in the state, except when the mother’s life is in danger. It’s being called the most restrictive abortion bill in the country. Or the strongest measure to protect life.

Sponsors of the Alabama Human Life Protection Act say the legislation is crafted to be a deliberate challenge to Roe v. Wade.

And now Alabama’s Republican Governor Kay Ivey has signed the bill into law. The Act is scheduled to go into effect in six months.

The Bill Has No Exception for Rape or Incest

Under the Act, a woman receiving an abortion would not be criminally liable. However, any doctor performing an abortion would be charged with a Class A felony, and could receive between 10 and 99 years in prison.

While liberal states define the mother’s “health” to include mental or emotional health — in effect, allowing abortion for any reason the mother wishes — Alabama’s law doesn’t play such games. Abortion is banned for any reason other than to “avert death or …serious risk of substantial physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

Alabama’s senate debated an amendment that would include exceptions for cases of rape and incest. Bill sponsor Rep. Terri Collins said she would support a rape and incest exception. She just wanted to pass a bill that would serve as the strongest challenge to Roe v. Wade. Sen. Clyde Chambliss argued that all unborn children deserve protection. The amendment failed by a 21-11 margin.

Challenging Roe v. Wade

“I’ve answered many emails from people who have poured out their hearts with real stories that were true,” Rep. Collins said, according to AL.com. “My goal with this bill is not to hurt them in any way. My goal with this bill, and I think all of our goal, is to have Roe vs. Wade turned over, and that decision be sent back to the states so that we can come up with our laws that address and include amendments and things that address those issues.”

According to LifesiteNews, Alabama’s law, like “heartbeat” laws in states like Georgia, is part of a “broader strategy by state pro-lifers to openly defy Roe’s ‘viability’ cutoff for abortion laws.” That is, to provoke a Supreme Court review of the landmark and bloody 1973 Roe ruling.

As Rep. Collins put it, “The heart of this bill is to confront a decision by the Court in 1973 that says that the child in the womb is not a human being.”

Planned Parenthood Promises “the Fight of Our Lives”

The Act faces certain legal challenge. The ACLU of Alabama and Planned Parenthood are already set to run to court.

Staci Fox is president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates. “In the coming days we will be mounting the fight of our lives,” she said, “We will take this to court and ensure abortion remains safe and legal.”

But while Fox is speaking metaphorically — and without a trace of irony — the bill aims to protect actual lives. Says Rep. Chambliss, “Life is a gift of our creator and we must do everything that we can to protect lives. And if that is a couple of million dollars (spent to protect the law in court), that is a small, small price to pay for those lives.”

Democratic candidates are naturally in an uproar over Alabama’s efforts to protect life, with Kamala Harris calling it “outrageous news.” Yet when it comes to outrageous, nothing can top Alabama Democrat state Rep. John Rogers. In protesting the bill, Rogers declared abortion is necessary when the child is unwanted. “Some kids are unwanted, so you kill them now or you kill them later,” he said. “You bring them in the world unwanted, unloved, you send them to the electric chair. So, you kill them now or you kill them later.”

Therein lies the choice that was put before Gov. Ivey. It’s the same one put before Israel of old: The choice between life and death. The choice between affirming the God-given dignity and value of every human being from the moment of conception or hopelessly denying and discarding of the most innocent and precious.

Alabama’s governor choose life.