Pastor Shirley Caesar tells the story about her sister’s little boy who came in the kitchen one evening while his mother was fixing supper. The little boy handed his mother a piece of paper on which he had been writing.

After wiping her hands on her apron his mother read it carefully: mowing the yard five dollars; making up my own bed this week one dollar; going to the store fifty cents; taking out the trash one dollar. Pastor Caesar said the little boy continued to add up the money he thought his mother owed him for all of his hard work. After adding up the total, his mother looked at him as thousands of memories suddenly flashed through her mind. The mother picked up a pen, turned the paper over and wrote the following to her son, “nine months of carrying you holding you inside of me no charge.”

The mother went on to list other things she had not charged her son for, but the time she carried him speaks volume when we consider the Republican Abortion Bill that requires an ultrasound using a vaginal transducer. This bill degrades women and is an indictment on motherhood.

As a Christian, I firmly believe in the sanctity of life, and that is why I have always been opposed to abortion. However, the Republican Vaginal Ultrasound Bill is outrageous. What the Republican supermajority is proposing is a vast overreach of the government’s power and a violation of women’s 4th Amendment rights.

This procedure can also harm or even kill the unborn baby if the mother changes her mind after the procedure and decides to have the baby. Furthermore, this bill doesn’t allow exceptions for women that may experience ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, suffer accidental trauma, or those who are victims of sexual assault.

The Republican Vaginal Ultrasound Bill is also unnecessary. Alabama law already requires a physician to perform a standard, noninvasive ultrasound prior to performing an abortion. This law, known as the “Women’s Right to Know” Act, also takes several other measures to discourage abortion, including providing women with a list of adoption agencies and informing women of the risks associated with having an abortion. The Bible tells husbands our wives are like our own bodies. When we don’t take care of our bodies, we carry around a great deal of discomfort. But when we take care of our body, we feel great.

We should seriously think about the audacity to suggest that mothers don’t love their children. Every mother pays a price for her children by carrying and giving birth to them. Well, when the little boy finished reading the other side of the paper his mother handed to him, his little eyes began to tear up as he looked up at his mother. He said to her, “Mama, I sure do love you.” Then he took the pen and in great big letters he wrote, “paid in full.”

It is time that we stop treating mothers like second-class citizens and give them the respect that they’re due.