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In an effort to lessen the number of abortions in the US, Georgia passes the “heartbeat bill” to ban abortions when a heartbeat is first recognized in a fetus.

 

This “heartbeat bill” in Georgia seeks to ban abortions after a heartbeat, essentially 6 weeks, before a woman could even know that she is pregnant; however, this does not include situations with rape, incest, or times when the mother is in danger. This type of restriction, instead of an outright ban, is a more favored and more successful strategy when trying to limit abortions.

 

However, doctors who oppose this type of legislation say that what people may see as a heartbeat at six weeks is actually just a vibration of the developing tissues that could not exist without the mother, the technical term is called “embryonic cardiac activity.” Still, Tom McClusky, President of March for Life Action, which opposes abortion said: “What we’d like to do is change the culture so that no family facing this situation would think of the option of abortion,” Emily Wax-Thibodeaux and Ariana Eunjung Cha, of The Washington Post, report.

 

Wax-Thibodeaux & Cha add that Republican Governor in Georgia, Brian Kemp states, “Georgia is a state that values life… We stand up for those who are unable to speak for themselves” before he put his signature on the Life Act. Because of this act, the “heartbeat bill” in Georgia made national headlines after Alyssa Milano, actress and women’s rights activist, wrote a letter to Kemp’s office to protest the Life Act. This letter was signed by 50 celebrities who vowed to boycott the states if this bill was signed into law.

 

To go against this bill, lawmakers have brought up the Roe v. Wade case from 1973, a case that established a woman’s rights to an abortion. According to Elizabeth Nash, the senior state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, research, and policy group focused on reproductive health and rights, that in the Roe case it says, “a state cannot ban abortion before viability… Viability is determined individually but on average is between about 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy” (Ravitz). Here, viability is the ability for a fetus to survive by itself outside of the womb.

 

Ravitz notes that similar “heartbeat” bills are being worked out in 10 other states such as Missouri, Tennessee, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, South Carolina, and West Virginia. However, Georgia was the latest states of three others to sign a bill like this into law; the other states were, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Ohio.

 

According to Wax-Thibodeaux & Cha, in an interview, Leana Wen, President of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, stated that the Georgia legislation is part of a larger landscape of nearly 300 anti-abortion bills introduced so far this year in 36 states. Many of these bills, like the one in Georgia, allows authorities to investigate women who miscarry, and one in Texas that would allow capital punishment for those receiving or performing an abortion.

 

A state going on the more extreme side of banning abortions is Alabama, which enacted a near-total ban on May 15 in which doctors could face up to 99 years in prison if they were convicted. The opposition has been fierce, and during a fierce debate, people questioned the motive for an abortion ban in a state that has refused to expand Medicaid.

 

Works Cited

Ravitz, Jessica. "Courts say anti-abortion 'heartbeat bills' are unconstitutional. So why do they keep coming?" CNN, Turner Broadcasting System, 16 May 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/01/26/health/heartbeat-bills-abortion-bans-history/index.html. Accessed 3 June 2019.

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Wax-Thibodeaux, Emily, and Ariana Eunjung Cha. "Georgia governor signs 'heartbeat bill,' giving the state one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation." The Washington Post, 7 May 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/georgia-governor-signs-heartbeat-bill-giving-the-state-one-of-the-most-restrictive-abortion-laws-in-the-nation/2019/05/07/d53b2f8a-70cf-11e9-8be0-ca575670e91c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3ada9181a74d. Accessed 3 June 2019.