Maryland chief financial officer calls for divesting from Alabama businesses following state’s abortion ban

Maryland’s chief financial officer Thursday called on the state to divest its retirement pension funds from Alabama businesses after Alabama passed a bill that banned nearly all abortions.

In a Facebook post Thursday, Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot (D) called on the 1,100 employees of his department to not travel to Alabama and announced his plan to divest the state’s $52 billion pension fund from all Alabama-based businesses.

{mosads}“The radical anti-abortion bill signed into law yesterday by the Governor of Alabama is a malicious assault on the rights and protections of women everywhere,” Franchot wrote on Facebook. “This bill also represents an assault on the basic values of our country and of the State of Maryland.”

As the state’s comptroller, Franchot is vice chair of Maryland’s retirement system.

“I can work to ensure that Maryland’s taxpayer dollars are not used to subsidize extremism,” he wrote. “Furthermore, experience has shown that MONEY is the one thing that matters more to people of this caliber than their religious prerogatives.”

Franchot’s call to boycott Alabama over the law banning nearly-all abortions is paired with a similar effort from Colorado, whose secretary of state also urged employees to not travel to Alabama.

The calls for boycotts from state leaders comes a day after Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed into law an abortion ban that makes no exemptions for victims of rape and incest, only making an exception for when the mother’s health is in danger.

The new law, which Ivey noted is unenforceable, is designed to challenge the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling that gave women the right to abortion.

The law has sparked national outrage, with abortion advocacy groups and the American Civil Liberties Union vowing to fight it in court.