Alabama legislation aimed at the core of national abortion rights moved a step closer to final approval and its goal of a court challenge to Roe v. Wade today.

The Alabama Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill on a 7-2 vote after a public hearing.

The bill would make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion in Alabama. Committee approval this morning puts the bill in position for a vote Thursday by the state Senate. That would forward the bill to Gov. Kay Ivey, who could sign it into law.

The committee adopted an amendment to allow abortions in cases of pregnancies caused by rape or incest. The amendment, by Sen. Tom Whatley, R-Auburn, was adopted on a voice vote.

The committee then approved the bill, with Sens. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham; and Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, casting the two no votes. Voting in favor of the bill were Sens. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore; Will Barfoot, R-Montgomery; Sam Givhan, R-Huntsville; Arthur Orr, R-Decatur; Larry Stutts, R-Sheffield; Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, the chairman; and Whatley.

The vote came after a public hearing during which five people spoke in opposition to the bill and four spoke in support.

Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, the sponsor, urged the committee not to add amendments, saying the original bill would provide the clearest challenge to Roe v. Wade on the issue of right to life of the unborn. The bill already included an exception to allow abortions in cases of serious health risks to the mother. Collins opposed adding the exception for rape and incest.

“To accept another amendment that weakens the argument, or diverts the message of the argument, which is the baby in the womb is a person, dilutes the whole message,” Collins said.

Whatley said he did not think the bill could pass the Senate without the rape and incest exception.

“I believe this bill will not survive the Senate without an amendment,” Whatley said. “And that’s the legislative process. We’ve heard today, ‘no amendments, no amendments.’ However, that’s the process. Amendments are the process.”

The full Senate will consider the amendment again when the bill reaches the Senate floor on Thursday.

During the public hearing, one of the opponents of the bill who spoke was Samantha Brakely, who said she became pregnant after she was raped by a co-worker in 2017.

“When I found out that I was pregnant, I can’t begin to describe the words, the emotions that I felt,” Brakely told the committee. “I knew I could not carry this pregnancy to term. I knew that.”

Brakely said her life would have been at risk had she not been able to choose to have an abortion.

“If abortion was not legal, I would still have one, somewhere, somehow,” Brakely said. “Or, I just would not be here. Because there’s no way that I would be able to carry my rapist’s child. There’s no way. And I want you all to know that as you are deciding on this. Please, please, I am begging you, please don’t take away my choice. Please don’t take away so many other young women’s choices. We need access to safe, legal abortion. We need it. We have to have it.”

Samantha Brakely speaks to the Alabama Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to a bill to make abortion a felony in Alabama. (Mike Cason/mcason@al.com)

Christy Harmon, a pregnancy counselor for Lifeline Children’s Services, an adoption, orphan care and foster care organization, said there is no shortage of families willing to adopt children from women with unintended pregnancies under difficult circumstances.

Harmon described several examples of women she has counseled -- a young professional woman carrying a baby with spina bifida who would need extreme medical care, a homeless girl who was a prostitute and had used illegal drugs during her pregnancy, and a 42-year-old woman who lived in a trailer park, was on methadone and had recently been released from prison.

“In every one of these situations we had not one, but multiple families step up and say that they were willing to adopt these babies born to women in difficult medical and social situations,” Harmon said. “Multiple families.

“Every day we see the positive impact on women who make the life affirming choices of parenting or adoption. And more importantly, we see the humanity of the unborn child and his moral right to be protected.”

After the public hearing, committee members got a chance to comment on the bill. Coleman-Madison, a Democratic senator from Birmingham, spoke out against it. She said she remembered from her high school days that girls in her neighborhood did not have access to abortions but those with money did.

“The bottom line is that when the dust settles, that is still going to happen. The persons with the means, the money, the wherewithal, they will still have abortions,” Coleman-Madison said.

Coleman-Madison talked about the state’s problems such as a historically high rate of infant mortality and other health care problems and the closing of rural hospitals. She said men would think differently if they knew what it was like to carry a child and give birth.

“I am adamantly opposed to the concept of regulating a person’s body,” Coleman-Madison said. "You don’t find bills that regulate men’s personal body parts.

"I have a few ideas. First of all, the Bible says if part of your body offends you, what do you do? You cut it off. In this case, we haven’t come up with a bill about the people who rape, to castrate. That may be one that we need to look at. Or if a person gets a girl pregnant out of wedlock or under age, maybe that’s something that we need to think about. It becomes a different thing when it’s your body part."

Coleman-Madison proposed an amendment saying that if a woman was forced to give birth because of the abortion ban, the state would bear the cost of prenatal care and medical care for the child until age 3, the cost of the woman’s mental and psychological care and the cost of the birth. The amendment failed on a voice vote.

Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, is handling the bill in the Senate.

“Life is precious. And unborn children, they deserve the protection of their life just as an infant just after birth,” Chambliss said Tuesday.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the bill 74-3, with support by the Republican majority and opposition from Democrats, who proposed amendments but mostly sat out the vote.

Chambliss, like the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, said the goal is to trigger a lawsuit that could overturn the Roe v. Wade decision based on the concept that the unborn have a right to life.

“We need to get to that question of personhood," Chambliss said. "Does the Constitution speak to that, not speak to that? So, if we can get to that question, then we think the Supreme Court would need to take that up and to answer that question.”

Chambliss said Tuesday his initial thoughts are to keep the bill as it is but said that could change.

“I’m studying that issue in detail right now with the various attorneys and trying to get all the input,” Chambliss said Tuesday afternoon. “On the surface, that would be my hope. But we’re working through the input from the various attorneys. And then obviously my colleagues in the Senate will have some say in that.”

Sen. Malika Sanders-Fortier of Selma, a lawyer, first-time senator and one of five Democrats on the 12-member Judiciary Committee, said abortion is a difficult issue in need of thoughtful debate.

“I believe in the human rights of unborn children,” Sanders-Fortier said. "And I believe in the human rights of women. And as I was growing up in my government class, my teacher told me at Selma High School, my government teacher told me that’s how freedom works, is that one person’s rights end where another person’s begins.

"I think this is the one context that where this is a very challenging issue because it’s so layered. You have women, whose bodies house babies. Every human being should have say-so over their bodies. But in this particular case, it’s not just her body that’s an issue, it’s also the life of another human being.

“So, I think what I would rather see, rather than a bill like this, is our state have a conversation that’s not a political conversation about how do we protect both the rights of women and unborn babies. And I know to some people that is impossible. I just don’t see it like that.”

The public hearing is scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m.

This story was edited at 1:22 p.m. to add Sen. Tom Whatley to the list of those voting for the bill.