“The Georgia legislature passed common sense fetal well-being provisions,” he argued, “including one that would make absent fathers pay child support during pregnancy and another that would give valuable tax benefits to pregnant women. “Letting women decide for themselves when to start or expand a family and letting women make their own health care decisions.”Īttorney Jeffrey Harris, arguing for the state, argued that there are provisions aside from the strict abortion limitations that would positively impact Georgia women. “This case is about letting ‘her’ decide,” Sean Young, legal director for the ACLU of Georgia, told GPB News. Georgia’s bill sparked outcry from abortion rights advocates who have called it a direct attack on women’s rights by Republican lawmakers. Mississippi’s law was also blocked by lower courts, but is now set to challenge a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion upheld by Roe v. The law was blocked in lower courts, preventing it from being enacted. It also includes what supporters call “personhood” language that grants legal rights to fertilized eggs. The ACLU of Georgia and a coalition of abortion rights activists sued the state in 2019 after lawmakers passed HB 481, which creates a short timeline for a woman to receive an abortion. “Don't you agree, though, that's really what we ought to do? I mean, it's not every day that we get the Supreme Court - actually, we can allow the Supreme Court to do some work for us.”īoth the state’s attorney and plaintiffs acknowledged the potential precedent-setting significance of the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision.
“I think that's the prudent way to proceed,” he added. “If it were to uphold that law, that would really require us to think hard about how the Supreme Court's decision applies here,” Pryor said. questioned attorneys on both sides about the feasibility of moving forward with the case while the Supreme Court’s decision in the coming months would set a legal precedent. House passed legislation that would create a statutory right for health care professionals to provide abortions - a move that comes amid the intensifying battle over abortion rights. The restrictive Georgia law is on par with the recently enacted Texas law, which also bans abortions as early as six weeks and has stirred outrage among supporters of reproductive rights.įriday’s hearing also played out at the same time the U.S. Critics say many women don’t even know they are pregnant until further into the first trimester, meaning the law essentially amounts to a total ban on abortions. Georgia’s law under constitutional review would ban most abortions once a doctor could detect fetal cardiac activity - usually around six weeks of pregnancy. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a case from Mississippi that bans most abortions after 15 weeks. 11th District Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on Friday in the case of Georgia’s controversial law HB 481, also known as the “heartbeat bill” because it would ban abortions after a doctor can detect a fetus’ heartbeat.īut judges were wary to push the case forward as the U.S. All vowed to make reproductive rights a defining issue of the 2022 legislative session and election.The U.S. Annette Taddeo, D-Miami, another possible gubernatorial contender and Sen. "Never.”ĭeVane was among the women who demonstrated outside of the Florida House chambers against a Texas-style abortion ban Tuesday as Republican members caucused inside, and then joined a protest on the Capitol’s steps against a Texas-style abortion law.Ī cadre of women lawmakers, including Eskamani, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, also a candidate for governor state Sen.
“This is my 50th year at the Florida Capitol and in all that time I have never seen a bill that would regulate a man’s reproductive freedom," she added.
It's "the most basic control that a person could have." “It just keeps getting worse and worse when it comes to women and their reproductive freedom and control of our bodies," said Barbara DeVane, a retired history teacher and women right’s activist in Tallahassee.
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