Legislation pro or con unlikely to advance

A total ban on abortion isn’t likely to clear the General Assembly this legislative session. Neither is a repeal of Georgia’s current law that bans most abortions about six weeks into a pregnancy.

Some Republican lawmakers are expected to introduce proposals to give embryos “personhood” rights, but Gov. Brian Kemp has not called for any new limits.

House Speaker Jon Burns has said he doesn’t plan to push for new restrictions on abortion while the Georgia Supreme Court weighs a legal challenge to the law the Legislature passed in 2019 banning the procedure in most cases once a fetal heartbeat has been detected and before many women know they are pregnant.

But it was an abortion opponent who may have dealt a death blow to any legislation this session to tighten restrictions on the procedure.

And he did it in a prayer. During a Jan. 20 event organized by Georgia Right to Life to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the now-moot U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, Nathaniel Darnell thanked God for the recent death of former House Speaker David Ralston.

Darnell, the Georgia director for the National Federation of Republican Assemblies, said:

“Lord, may you please confront those legislators who might seek to be an obstacle to these efforts. We thank you for how you have relieved us from one legislator, a speaker who made himself an obstacle, and we pray that father you would help other legislators to serve you in fear and to take warning.”

Darnell drew immediate condemnation from Republican legislators and conservative leaders, including Cole Muzio of Frontline Policy Action.

“Absolutely disgraceful and not representative of the #prolife movement,” Muzio wrote on Twitter.

Nathaniel Darnell