National debate over the state’s abortion ban has focused on Ms. Ivey, a Republican who was little known beyond Alabama until this week but has been one of the state’s most enduring political survivors. Ms. Ivey became governor in 2017 after a tawdry scandal led to Robert Bentley’s resignation. Like Ms. Ivey, Ms. Collins, who joined the Legislature in 2010 as Republicans took control of Montgomery for the first time since Reconstruction, has been unflinching in her opposition to abortion. Despite a national outcry — and a more muted one in Alabama — years of polling suggests that many residents support strict abortion limits. In 2014, the Pew Research Center found that 58 percent of Alabamians believed that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

Source: New York Times May 16, 2019 23:41 UTC