Ask the average Alaskan if the State Constitution protects abortion, and you’ll likely get a nod and a shrug – of course it is. That’s what we’ve been told for decades. Courts say it. Politicians repeat it. And after a while, it calcifies into “truth.”
But it’s not true. Not even close.
There is no right to abortion in the Alaska Constitution. You won’t find it in the text, in the constitutional debates, or in the intent of the framers. What you will find is a 1997 court decision – Valley Hospital Ass’n v. Mat-Su Coalition for Choice – where the Alaska Supreme Court took the word “privacy” and blew it up into a sweeping abortion mandate so broad, so unmoored from constitutional text, it made Roe v. Wade look subtle.
Here’s the sleight of hand: Alaska’s privacy clause – Article I, Section 22 – was adopted in 1972. The public debate surrounding it focused on protecting personal data, stopping government snooping, and defending against intrusive surveillance. That’s it. Not one mention of abortion. Not one nod toward reproductive rights. In fact, the amendment passed before Roe was decided – before the U.S. Supreme Court ever stuffed abortion into the “penumbras” and “emanations” of privacy law.
Abortion in Alaska isn’t merely legal – it’s practically untouchable. All nine months, any reason, publicly funded. Minor girls can get abortions without telling their parents.
But in Valley Hospital, the Alaska Supreme Court decided that this clause – passed for an entirely different purpose – created a fundamental right to abortion. Not a protected interest. Not a policy preference. A right so sacrosanct that any restriction would be subject to strict scrutiny, the highest constitutional bar there is.
Worse, the court chose to ignore Planned Parenthood v. Casey – the federal decision that had already replaced Roe’s strict scrutiny framework with a more flexible “undue burden” test (Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 1992). Instead of following the narrower precedent, the justices embraced Roe wholesale. Not out of necessity – but choice. They wanted the most expansive protection possible for abortion, and they took it. From where? Not the Constitution. From their own ideology.
So, Alaska became one of the most extreme pro-abortion states in the country – not because its people demanded it, not because its State Legislature voted for it, but because five judges rewrote the rules in one fell swoop. Since then, courts have struck down parental notification laws (Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest v. State of Alaska, 2016), conscience protections for hospitals, and limits on public abortion funding – all under the shadow of Valley Hospital. The ruling didn’t interpret the law. It imposed a worldview.
Then came 2022. The U.S. Supreme Court – in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – overturned Roe and Casey. It said plainly what the Valley Hospital opinion should’ve recognized all along: that Alaska’s Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. It was never there. It was fabricated, and that the issue should be returned to the people — not preserved as a relic of judicial overreach.
This doesn’t mean we settle for incremental regulations or politely ask the court to reconsider. This means we expose the lie at the heart of Valley Hospital and tear it out by the roots.
And yet in Alaska, Valley Hospital stands.
Despite being built on Roe, despite parroting its now-defunct reasoning, despite being untethered from our constitutional history or text – it remains. It’s a zombie ruling: legally dead but still dragging itself through the courts, swatting away every attempt to restrain or regulate abortion.
That’s not jurisprudence. That’s judicial malpractice.
Abortion in Alaska isn’t merely legal – it’s practically untouchable. All nine months, any reason, publicly funded. Minor girls can get abortions without telling their parents. Hospitals can be forced to perform them, conscience be damned. All because of a ruling that built a constitutional “right” on sand.
Here’s the truth no one in Juneau seems willing to say: Valley Hospital is ripe for challenge. It was flawed when written. It’s legally obsolete now. Any state judge still clinging to its logic is standing in the wreckage of Roe, trying to pretend it never fell.
But it did. The spell is broken. The legal scaffolding is gone. And it’s time to face that head-on.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
This doesn’t mean we settle for incremental regulations or politely ask the court to reconsider. This means we expose the lie at the heart of Valley Hospital and tear it out by the roots. Someone – a legislator, a municipality, a pro-life legal group – needs to go straight at it. Not workaround lawsuits. Not symbolic bills. A direct, unapologetic challenge to the legitimacy of the decision itself.
Because this isn’t just bad law. It’s moral rot in black robes.
Abortion is not privacy. It’s not healthcare. It is the deliberate destruction of a human being. We don’t need to regulate that. We need to end it. And that begins with calling out the constitutional fraud that’s enabled it.
Alaska’s Constitution does not protect abortion. It never has. Valley Hospital invented a right that never existed, and it’s time someone said so – not in whispers, not in legalese, but with conviction and clarity.
Because the unborn deserve more than footnotes. They deserve justice.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
13 Comments
Only a Xtian fundamentalist male would feel righteous relegating women to back alley butchers for an abortion. Shame on you!
I don’t have a problem with insignificant and irresponsible women not having offspring. Would be a lot less future EBT parasites in the future.
I see “women” who dehumanize their own babies as “clumps of cells”, not as women, but as self serving devils.
Christians should just let them do what they do. Eliminating the lessers would benefit us all in the long run.
At this point, I am on board with letting the deranged leftist feminists continue to destroy society just to show them the error of their own ways. When it all crumbles, it will be the builders who will again hold the power, without the losers.
Just don’t expect me, or any other tax payer to fund their “freedom to choose”.
So I guess you would prefer dead babies and damaged women to healthy births and happy adoptive couples? Good for you. Have fun in hell.
Abortion is worse than slavery. It is a shameful act that future generations will look back on with scorn. We need to be rid of it. You cannot have a “right” to murder another human.
Abortion is Murder end of story. There are so many couples out there, that are willing to raise that child in a caring and loving home.
The above statement is another lie. The truth is that abortions were being done by doctors illegally but not in the back alley That was the successful attempt to scare the listener/reader. Men are being put down once again because of the feminist movement and the fake and foul media, presuming that men do not care. Not true. DEI is also against men without any merit. This kind of talk is rebellion against a holy God and the family unit He set up in Scripture. Truth is absent from the abortion conflict but emotion and lies are rampant. Pray for an end to abortion, a project of the “death cult” in our country. Medical butchers are making money selling baby parts through Planned Parenthood to university labs located in different parts of the country. It is about the money. I have two different price list. One prints a brain sells for $595, Heart $595, upper limbs with hands $890, Lower limbs with feet $890, Liver $595 and pancreas is $595. Our Constitution guarantees “Life” is a first right. The criminal code in the founding documents comes from Ten Commandments in Scripture. The truth has been buried repeatedly. The Bible is a historical and literary work that should be used throughout the public arena. Some states are ahead of us and are putting the documents into education. and everywhere. Please pray for an end to abortion and an end to Planned Parenthood.
to the author: Get the lawyers and put the purpose out there like a political challenge and those who want it ended will step up! Go for it! I’m in!
…also added is this in the Alaska Statutes: AS18.16.10; AS 18.16.20 and the physicians only…..AS 08.64.200 in 1970 and the medical board 2024 limited it and currently it gave physicians and clinicians permission to perform abortions and underage girls don’t have to have consent from parents.
All this shows the mentality and state of thinking of the legislative body since statehood.
The State Constitution gives the legislature the power to make repeal and amend laws. Where is there a legislative elected that will truly step forward and do what they say they are committed to do if they said they would?
We must require all candidates for Governor to publish their plan & preparation to tear up abortion by the roots on Day 1 of Office. May the best plan win!!!
Love the idea but no consequences for straying form the plan.
In my opinion, the Alaska State Constitution has been weaponized against the public by a corrupt Government and Judicial system. For this reason we-the-people demand, as stated in the Alaska Constitution, Article 1, Section 8: “The power of Grand Juries to investigate and make recommendations concerning the public welfare or safety shall never be suspended.” Commentary to Alaska Constitution Preamble: “The Grand Jury is preserved, for all purposes, particularly for the investigation of public officials.”.
Alaskan’s need our Grand Jury investigative rights back that were stolen by the Alaska Judicial system. For more information: https://alaskagrandjurorsassociation.org.
I can die in peace, after decades of saying the same thing, seeing that David Cooper fully understands the constitutional issue. I explained it this way to prolife governors, legislators and Christians, but all they wanted to do was nibble at the edges of the satanic beast. He has expressed it clearly, forcefully and courageously. Note that the troll above pounces on it immediately without any attempt to make a logical or legal argument to refute Cooper. It is good to see that most comments brush by his shopworn scolding, which fails to deflect Cooper’s iron-clad reasoning. The trolls still live in the 60s, thinking about “back alley abortions”. They never care about the thousands of women now being damaged by “home shower stall abortions” (see the movie UNPLANNED), the chemical abortions that now constitute 58% of America’s annual million, and hit 11% (low estimate) of the aborted mothers. Let’s see, that 110,000 a year. David Jones would be best off staying in his locker.