MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama Senator Larry Stutts (R-Tuscumbia) withdrew his controversial Senate Bill 289 Tuesday after a nationwide backlash against the legislation and the senator’s personal connection to it. The bill would have repealed the requirement to allow women a 48-hour stay in the hospital after giving birth and no longer require doctors to give written notification to a woman if dense breast tissue is found in a mammogram. In addition to his duties in the senate, Stutts is an OB/GYN. The bill was pulled after it was discovered the regulation Stutts was seeking to repeal was originally passed into law after a patient of his died.
Stutts narrowly won his seat in 2014 after a heated campaign against former Senator Roger Bedford, who had been one of the most powerful elected members of the Democratic party in the state.
“My sole intention with Senate Bill 289 was to re-center healthcare decisions between a patient and her doctor by limiting government mandates,” Sen. Stutts said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “Recent media attention has not conveyed this genuine intent. After careful consideration and feedback from my constituents, I realize this legislation isn’t the best vehicle to achieve the original intent. Therefore, I am withdrawing SB289 and am comfortable with it not being considered in committee.”
The hospitalization law Stutts sought to repeal was passed in 1999, prompted by the death of one of his patients the year before. A wrongful death suit filed by the woman’s husband against Dr. Stutts was later settled out of court.
In his statement, Stutts denied that the bill had anything to do with his former patient.
“Let me also say that neither the bill nor today’s decision is related to any patient case I have had during my medical career, despite media insinuations to the contrary,” he said. “I am proud of my 25 years serving my community and state as an OB-GYN, and I look forward to continue serving them both as a medical doctor and senator.”
The requirement for physicians to notify, in writing, women whose mammograms show dense breast tissue, which Stutts’ bill would have repealed, was originally sponsored by former Sen. Bedford after his wife was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes. Her mammogram showed dense breast tissue, which masked the cancer until it had already spread.
Members of the Democratic party quickly waged a social media campaign against the bill, and several media outlets soon picked up the story, but it was the discovery of Sen. Stutts’ intimate connection with the law he was trying to repeal that ultimately sealed its fate.
