Martha Crownover This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. www.cw.ua.edu - New law to require disclosure

   www.cw.ua.edu/vnews/display.v/ - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/11/2002   Last Visited: 10/11/2002

   Martha Crownover, an employee of Summit Medical Center, which owns clinics in Birmingham and Montgomery, said she could not speak on behalf of Summit but said the act is a "misnomer."
   
   "It's already required by law that we give large amounts of information to women seeking abortions," Crownover said.
   
   Crownover, a University graduate with a master's degree in women's studies, used to be the student coordinator for the National Organization for Women at the University and is now the coordinator for Alabama's Women's Health Initiative, a nonprofit feminist organization based in Birmingham.
   
   She claimed that the purpose of the law is to impose a 24-hour waiting period on women who decide to have abortions, which can be problematic for women already in financial trouble who travel to Alabama from other states to have abortions.
   
   Crownover also said the act "presupposes that women haven't weighed their options already." "Women who make this difficult decision have already thought long and hard about this," she said. "I don't like this law as a feminist; it makes women feel stupid."
   
   Crownover said the printed information written by the Alabama Department of Public Health as a result of the act is erroneous.
   
   The forms refer to a fetus as an "unborn child," a term that she said is not a scientifically correct term and that, Crownover believes, makes the information "slanted toward pro-life."
   
   She also said the Department of Health has not printed any of the required information in Spanish for the clinic's Hispanic customers.