Jessica Stallings learned she was pregnant when she was 15. The father was her 22-year-old uncle, she said. He had been raping her since she was 13.

For Stallings, the option of having an abortion in the case of rape or incest wasn’t a hypothetical.

Alabama’s newest abortion ban – described by supporters and opponents as the most restrictive in the country – gained national attention last week in part because it makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

“Most of the people who talk about everything that’s going on, they can say what they think they believe,” she told AL.com, “but you don’t truly realize what someone’s gone through until you’ve walked in their shoes.”

Jessica Stallings, who says she is a survivor of rape and incest, is in favor of the Alabama abortion bill.

Her oldest child was born just three months after she turned 16, she said, a claim that is corroborated by publicly available court documents and by a conversation with her mother. She had two more children by her uncle, she said, and has been in complicated custody battles with him ever since.

And yet, Stallings said, she did not consider having an abortion. The 32-year-old resident of Jackson County is Republican, staunchly pro-life and supports the law.

“I don’t think there should be an exception for rape and incest,” she said. “All lives are valuable and God created every one of us. My children are just as important, regardless of how they were conceived.”

In the national media last week, Alabama’s male state senators gained attention for passing the abortion bill, while protestors – many of them women, some dressed as handmaids – earned attention outside the State House. But in Alabama, support and opposition don’t fall neatly along gender lines.

Opinion polls have consistently shown that most Alabama voters, including most women, oppose abortion rights. This year’s bill was originally introduced by a woman, Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur. It was signed into law by a woman, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.

Stallings said she doesn’t see Republican women represented in national media coverage of the abortion bill as often as the women protesting.

“I firmly believe in women’s rights,” Stallings said. “I’m a Republican. I have a lot of Democratic friends. We don’t always see eye to eye on everything, but you can civilly listen to every side.”

Where Alabama law does fall short, she said, is protecting rape victims when they choose to go through with pregnancies.

Most states have laws preventing rapists from pursuing custody or visitation of children conceived through rape.

Alabama isn’t one of them.

The only thing that comes close is Alabama’s version of Megan’s Law, the Sex Offenders Registration and Notification Act. It says a convicted sex offender can’t live with a minor, if the victim of the crime for which he was convicted was a minor who lived with him.

“If we’re going to ban abortions,” said Stallings, “we need laws in place for rape victims. We’re not encouraging them to go through with their pregnancies if we’re telling them they have to be constantly bound to their rapist because they conceived.”