Town Hall meeting held to discuss controversial healthcare bill

Logan Rose Church, daughter of Gene and Rose Church, listens to her father speak at a town hall meeting April 6. Reserved seats for Sens. Stutts and Melson can be seen in the back.

MUSCLE SHOALS, ALA.—A crowd of about 100 people gathered at the Muscle Shoals Career Academy Monday night to discuss a recent bill introduced into the state senate by Sen. Larry Stutts.

SB 289 created controversy after Stutts introduced it and opinions discussions have popped up on social media sites as well as in public forums.

The bill aimed to dismantle regulations within the healthcare fields specifically a law known as Rose’s Law. That law, passed in 1999, came after Rose Church passed away from complications resulting from giving birth. Stutts was Church’s doctor at the time. Rose’s husband Gene Church became the champion for her cause and the resulting law. He and his daughter were in attendance on April 6 at the town hall meeting.

“The madness didn’t start when the media firestorm began, when the newspapers and the MSNBC hosts began talking about it,” Church said. “The madness began when that bill hit the floor in the senate.”

Church was referring to the national media outlets that have picked up the story of this bill and transformed it from a local issue into a national topic of discussion.

Alabama State Senator Larry Stutts said he felt like the whole thing had been blown out of proportion.

“I’m disappointed and surprised with all of the personal attacks that have come from this,” Stutts said. “It is a sad commentary on our society when people use the internet and social media to attack others. I would have preferred an intelligent conversation about the issue of how to improve healthcare.

“I have received hundreds of vulgar messages online and through text messages,” Stutts said. “It’s disappointing to see something such as the internet, that can be used constructively for good purposes, be used for such vulgar attacks on an individual.”

Alabama State Representative Johnny “Mack” Morrow, who helped organize Monday’s event, said that despite contrary claims he was convinced this bill wasn’t going away.

“I’m convinced this man is so determined to get this passed that it will be back up for a vote and probably sooner than later,” Morrow said. “That’s why we’re having this meeting.”

Seats reserved for Sen. Stutts as well as Sen. Melson were visibly empty as the meeting began and Morrow began his short presentation by pointing out how many similar meetings Sen. Stutts had missed.

“I’m disappointed but not surprised that they aren’t here,” Morrow said. “They have refused to attend multiple meetings that legislators were asked to attend.”

Morrow pointed out that Stutts had been absent or late to all but two meetings he had been invited to attend.

“I perceive that as arrogance,” Morrow said. “He never said he was wrong, he never apologized to the women of Alabama.”

After recounting the events that lead up to his wife’s death and ultimately Rose’s Law, Gene Church stopped his normal pacing and turned to the crowd.

“I think people come into office with good intentions, I really do,” Church said. “But that bill (SB 289) had nothing good in it at all.”

Morrow suggested that Stutts had a personal motive when he introduced the bill.

“On his fifth day in the Alabama Senate Dr. Stutts introduced this bill,” Morrow said. “It seemed as though he was going after the family of his former patient as well as the family of the man he had just defeated.”

Maudie Bedford, wife of former State Senator Roger Bedford, was in attendance and discussed her experience with breast cancer and why the regulations in place are important for women’s health.

“The law that my husband worked so hard to get passed did not have any mandates in it,” Bedford said. “All it does—and all we want for women of Alabama—is for patients to be given all of the information they can about their health. From there it is up to the patient what they want to do. There’s never been any mandates involved, but SB 289 takes away a woman’s right to know and her right to choose.”

Morrow said, “the regulations that Stutts went after were personal.”

Morrow also claimed that Stutts had not removed the bill from consideration. However, Stutts refuted that claim.

“In the Alabama State Senate you cannot just remove a bill if you change your mind,” Stutts said. “What you do is just to quit moving the bill forward and to quit bringing it to the floor for discussion. Then it will eventually expire.”

Stutts said that he no longer supports the bill.

“I am no longer pushing this bill (SB 289) forward,” Stutts said. “Technically, it will expire at the end of this legislative session.”