Aisha Sultan Aisha Sultan is home and family editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Aisha Sultan Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

There’s no reason to be shocked by the extremists in Alabama who would force a girl raped by her father to bear his child. This is the holy war they’ve been waiting for. And this is the endgame that all religious zealots seek — the ability to control the most intimate, the most brutal, the most private decision a woman can ever face.

Since Jan. 22, 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled that restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional, the anti-abortion warriors have plotted for ways to upend it. And now, Donald Trump, of all people, has delivered their moment. They needed judges who share their view of America as a theocracy, in which their interpretation of God’s will supersedes all others.

White, conservative Republican men can finally decide for all the women what God says about when life begins. The 22 white Republican men in Alabama’s state Senate know better than any woman what God wants, and they’re ready to jail any doctor who defies them.

This week they passed legislation banning abortions at every stage of pregnancy, including for victims of rape and incest, and criminalizing the procedure for doctors. A woman, Gov. Kay Ivey, signed their legislation into law Wednesday.