The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House sets abortion ‘heartbeat bill’ vote
Advocates on both sides of issue urge lawmakers to vote their way.
The Georgia House was set to vote late Thursday on anti-abortion legislation dubbed the “heartbeat bill” that, if it passed, could become among the most restrictive laws on the procedure in the country.
The day after a House panel approved the measure, advocates on both sides of the issue filled the Capitol halls urging lawmakers to vote their way. Abortion advocates have vowed to challenge the legislation in court if it becomes law.
House Bill 481 was added to the calendar shortly after House Speaker David Ralston said Thursday night that he did not want to stand in the way of members debating the legislation.
“I respect the will of the House, and I think they’re entitled to have a vote on that,” Ralston said. “I agree with Governor Kemp: Every member needs to vote how they feel best.”
Gov. Brian Kemp early Thursday urged House leadership to approve
the bill, which would make abortion illegal as soon as a doctor can detect a heartbeat in a fetus.
A heartbeat is usually detected in a woman’s sixth week of pregnancy. Current Georgia law allows abortions up to 20 weeks.
Other states have passed similar legislation, but all have been challenged in court.
Women still would be able to get later abortions in cases of rape, incest or if the life of the mother is in danger.
Kemp said Thursday in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the bill would help preserve the sanctity of life and uphold campaign promises that he and other Republicans made to restrict abortions.
“I campaigned on signing the toughest abortion bill in the country,” he said, “and this is the toughest one we’ve got in the Legislature now.”
Kemp initially backed legislation that would have created a “trigger law” to ban almost all abortions if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, which established a nationwide right to abortion. The legislation failed to get a hearing before the Thursday deadline.
After a wave of GOP defeats last year in Atlanta’s suburbs, Ralston has said he wanted to do more to insulate vulnerable House GOP incumbents who could face backlash for votes on social issues. But he’s also been a supporter of more abortion restrictions.
Conservatives have made the heartbeat measure a leading priority, casting other pending efforts to restrict abortions as half-measures. Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan added his voice to the effort, too, calling it an “easy decision for me.”
State Rep. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, the bill’s sponsor, said that if a heartbeat is used to determine the end of life, it should be used to establish when life begins.
Doctors who oppose the legislation said the “heartbeat” detected at six weeks signals the practice motions of developing tissues that could not on their own power a fetus without the mother.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its 1972 Roe v. Wade decision that abortions could be performed until a fetus has a viable chance at life outside the womb.
House Democrats pushed back on the proposal Thursday and offered prayers for women who seek abortions, doctors who provide them and women who died in the past when abortions were illegal.
“Today we ask for blessings for all women who pass through hostile protests at abortion clinics,” said state Rep. Park Cannon, D-Atlanta. “May they stand tall and refuse to be shamed.”
Some Republicans also spoke about abortion, but with a different agenda.
“Today I rise to pray for the millions of unborn that have been killed over the years, the lives that have been ended by the practice of abortion,” said state Rep. Josh Bonner of Fayetteville. “May God have mercy on them, and may God have mercy on us.”