House Health Committee approves three bills, including “What is a Woman Act”

On Tuesday, the Alabama House Health Committee convened to discuss three bills, HB45, HB79, and SB79.

HB45, introduced by state Rep. Ed Oliver, R-District 81, would require the Alabama Medicaid Agency to cover any “noninvasive colorectal cancer screening test assigned a grade A or B under the recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force” and any “colonoscopy based on a positive test result.”

Oliver argued that the additional costs incurred from covering these screenings would be offset by a decrease in the amount of more expensive procedures, like colonoscopies, that the Alabama Medicaid Agency is currently covering due to delayed diagnoses.

However, cost was still a concern for some members of the committee.

“Mr. Oliver, just looking at this bill, I want to tell you, I think you’ve got a good heart, but my question, have you checked your pocketbook?” said Rep. Pebblin Warren, D-District 82. “Do we really have the money in the general fund to deal with Medicaid with an additional $1 million?”

“It costs us more not to do it than to do it is what I believe,” Oliver responded.

Despite those concerns, the bill went on to pass the committee.

Next, Rep. Chip Brown, R-District 105, presented HB79 which looks to extend legal protections to pharmacists who fill off-label medical treatments. Brown described such treatments as using an “approved drug… for an unapproved situation,” such as taking anti-depressants to treat migraines or diabetes medications for weight loss. Under Alabama law, doctors already have such legal protection when prescribing off-label treatments.

The bill was celebrated by multiple members of the committee and quickly passed.

The bulk of Tuesday’s meeting was dedicated to a public hearing concerning the last bill presented before the committee, SB79, the so-called “What is a Woman Act,” which passed the Alabama Senate last week. SB79 looks to codify definitions for the terms “man,” “woman,” “male,” “female,” “boy,” “girl,” “mother,” and “father” into state law.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. April Weaver, R-Brierfield, said that the legislation is “based on fundamental truths that are as old as the Book of Genesis and are as reliable as the sun in the sky. Men are born men, women are born women.” Weaver also characterized the bill as “the simplest and easiest to understand bill that you will consider during this entire session, simply definitions.”

Rep. Susan DuBose, herself a member of the House Health Committee and a sponsor of the bill’s House counterpart, then spoke in support of the legislation. “I wish we didn’t need to define what a man is or a woman is,” DuBose said. “But, you know, we do. When you have a Supreme Court justice who could not define what a woman is despite being one herself, looks like we’re going to have to codify this into Alabama law.”

“We do need to pass this law for clarity, certainty, and uniformity in the courts and in the laws of Alabama,” DuBose continued.

Bishop Jim Lowe, the Senior Pastor at the Guiding Light Church in Birmingham, then spoke in favor of the bill, citing the Bible as justification for the legislation’s provisions.

“Since creation, it has been universally accepted that God, the supreme authority in the universe, created human beings as male and female, designing them with complementary bodies and an unchangeable genetic identity to fulfill his command to be fruitful and multiply,” Lowe said. 

Eagle Forum of Alabama President Becky Gerritson also spoke in support of the bill and argued that it was important for the accuracy of Alabama’s vital records. “Defining male and female in law is essential for maintaining high-quality vital statistics that will be used in the creation of… important public policy decisions,” she said.

Despite SB79’s supporters claiming that the bill is simply one of definitions, activists and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, like the Alabama Transgender Rights Action Coalition, have argued that the bill is actually a targeted attack on the rights and liberties of transgender and nonbinary Alabamians. That sentiment was shared by four speakers who used the public hearing to express their disapproval of SB79.

“This is the Alabama state government trying to tell you what a woman is, not too long ago the Alabama state government couldn’t tell you what a person was,” one of the concerned citizens said, referring to the history of slavery in the state. “SB79 creates a narrow definition of men and women. Passing SB79 is beyond dangerous, it is reckless legislation.”

“When you create a narrow definition of who qualifies for rights, you create space to harm everyone who doesn’t fit that definition, especially if that definition is based on incorrect assumptions that ignore modern medical science,” they continued.

The opposed speakers criticized SB79 for erasing the experiences of intersex people, transgender people, and everyday Alabamians. One speaker, who holds a master’s degree in biology, also decried the bill’s definitions as inaccurate, stating that biologists recognize that definitions can change over time with the introduction of new information.

Some members of the committee also questioned the “immutability” of the bill’s definitions of sex, when the bill itself also carves out a space for “unknown” sex, acknowledging the existence of intersex people while simultaneously declaring that there are only two sexes, male and female. When Rep. Neil Rafferty, D-District 54, asked what public facilities intersex people would use, Rep. DuBose said that those individuals would “make that choice,” seemingly contradicting the language of the legislation which describes sex as objective and unchangeable.

Rafferty also questioned the alleged “simplicity” and “common sense” of the definitions presented in the bill, given that the language used in the “What is a Woman Act” has evolved over the past few legislative sessions in which it has been introduced.

Rafferty subsequently introduced an amendment to SB79 that would ensure a reasonable expectation of privacy by preventing the implementation of recording devices in bathrooms, compulsory inspection of someone’s genitalia to confirm their sex, or “anything along those lines.” However, the motion to accept the amendment failed to be seconded and its provisions were not added to the bill.

Ultimately, SB79 passed the committee with only Rep. Rafferty voting against its passage.