Alabama top stories in brief

• Southern Baptists condemned in vitro fertilization after voting on a resolution concerning the procedure at the annual Southern Baptist Convention on June 12. The resolution, while not outright banning IVF amongst church members, denounces the common practice of creating multiple embryos for fertilization which results in surplus embryos getting destroyed. The Southern Baptist stance aligns with an Alabama Supreme Court decision from February, in which the court equated the embryos used in IVF to people, arguing that embryos should be protected as human life. This ruling led to Alabama legislators passing stopgap legislation to protect IVF clinics and practitioners from liability. 

• Alabama’s entire congressional delegation signed onto a letter requesting federal assistance for the Interstate 10 Mobile River and Bridge project. The project, which is expected to cost $3.5 billion, aims to update I-10 infrastructure between Mobile and Baldwin counties by building a six-lane bridge in downtown Mobile that will connect to an expanded Bayway to connect the Port City to Baldwin County via U.S. 98 in Daphne. If granted, federal funding for the project will come from grants created by the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was passed in 2021. All eight of Alabama’s Republican congressional representatives who signed onto this letter voted against the IIJA in 2021. 

• State Superintendent Eric Mackey warned members of the State Board of Education that significant budget cuts could be on the horizon for Alabama’s schools as billions of dollars of federal pandemic relief funding through the American Rescue Plan Act’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Program is set to expire in September. This means some funding for some school districts’ programs and positions could expire as well, as the state has previously warned Alabama school districts that they do not plan to change funding to make up for the loss of ESSR funding. 

• The Alabama Community College system is partnering with the Alabama Department of Corrections by offering a free career prep program for those interested in jobs with the department. People who apply to become correctional officer’s with ADOC can participate in the ACTIVATE program at schools in the Alabama Community College system. ACTIVATE is meant to help applicants meet physical and educational pre-hiring requirements , and allows students to earn up to nine tuition-free college credit hours. This partnership in part aims to address ADOC’s staff recruitment and retention issues. 

• Alabama inmates have responded to a motion that seeks to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Alabama prison’s of using slave labor. Defendants in the suit — which include state officials, private employers and local governments — sought to dismiss the lawsuit by arguing that inmates must try to resolve their issues through prison’s internal grievance policies. However, the inmate’s  214-page response argues that their claims fall outside the purview of internal grievance systems and are concerned with violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and the First Amendment. Inmates are claiming that they were coerced into labor through threats and physical restraint while state officials and employers benefitted from their forced labor. 

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