Georgia Republicans Resuscitate Abortion Bill
At the 11th hour, Republican leadership reached a compromise on Georgia’s controversial “fetal pain” bill.
The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, HB954, appeared to be derailed after the Senate “practically gutted” the bill on Monday.
But, like the zombies in The Night of the Living Dead, the bill came back to life and “passed with just minutes remaining in the 2012 session.” Moreover, Senate leadership called for a vote after allowing only five minutes for debate.
As originally written by its sponsor, state Rep. Doug McKillip, R-Athens, the proposal would have cut by about six weeks the time women in Georgia may have an elective abortion. The Senate’s changes forced into the bill an exemption for “medically futile” pregnancies, giving doctors the option to perform an abortion past 20 weeks when a fetus has congenital or chromosomal defects.
Although the House — including McKillip and House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge — initially balked, they agreed Thursday to move forward with a compromise. It was to include a definition in the bill describing what “medically futile” means: Profound and “irremediable” anomalies that would be “incompatible with sustaining life after birth.”
Georgia Right To Life dubbed the Senate changes “selective euthanasia.”
According to Georgia Public Broadcasting, at least some Senators did not take passage of this bill, authored by and led by two men, quietly:
Vowing to take their case to the polls, chanting, “Women will remember in November,” a line of women Senators walked out of both the House and Senate wrapped in police tape after the abortion bill passed both chambers.
See the best photos of the protest
The bill now goes to Republican Governor Nathan Deal for his signature, and the Senators and Representatives head back home to campaign. All of them are up for re-election.
According to the National Review, similar laws have been passed in Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, all part of a national push to limit women’s access to abortion.
Cover photo cropped from 11Alive slideshow
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Also, three doctors who testified against the bill or attended a hearing to witness it … have been burgled. “Another doctor who testified about similar legislation last year has also received threatening phone calls.” And the OB/GYN Society of Georgia – which opposed the bill – was also burgled (computers).
Coincidence?
Nope, not a coincidence. People who believe that fetuses are living people will take out their anger (sometimes) on the ones they believe are killing them.
This really is a sad commentary on the state of our democracy when threats, intimidation and criminal activity take the place of vigorous debate. We need to show the GOP that its not working.
Doctors and other scientists need to be free to speak out and not muzzled by fanatics
I hope the women of Georgia and the men who care about their health will, indeed, remember this in November, and remember how the Republican Tea Party “mandate” in 2010 was supposed to be for the economy and small government. Instead, the GOP of almost every state in the union is driving extreme government overreach in the form of taking away women’s ability to get healthcare.
Thanks, Kathy, for keeping on this story.
While it’s preferable IMO to use less inflammatory terms whenever possible, it is completely accurate to describe the situation proscribed by this law as selective euthanasia. The question really is whether or not the individuals subject to euthanasia have the same right to life as do postnatal human beings.
“This really is a sad commentary on the state of our democracy when threats, intimidation and criminal activity take the place of vigorous debate.”
Indeed it is. It’s also a sad commentary on our ability to evolve as a knowlegeable and intelligent civilization. With the help of republicans that particular bar seems to be falling lower with each passing year.
@CStanley – a fetus is not an “individual”
@Z, @RC, @RR, @BB — thanks. It’s my home state, so I’ll still attached to politics there. I own property, although I cannot vote (cuz I vote here, in WA).
Not an individual
What is it then, Kathy? The only word i can think to substitute would be “organism”. Does that suit?
CS, at what point does any of this become YOUR business? A day after sperm and egg meet? A week? A month? A trimester? At what point do YOU gain rights to that fetus???
It’s the fetus itself that i believe has rights, zephyr. It’s not about me.
Don’t be afraid to step up to the plant CS, if you support something then you are a part of it. Let’s look at it a different way then: At what point do you believe a fetus gains “rights”??
(gotta love the editing function
Morally i believe that the right to life should begin at conception. Legally i feel there is reason to debate that, because pregnancy is a unique situation where the right to life of one individual depends on the support of another human being. There are actually other situations in which that’s the case to varying degrees, but pregnancy is the only common situation where an individual depends on bodily life support from another individual.
So I respect others opinions and the need for weighing mother’s rights with the unborn’s right to life, but what i won’t accept are demands that everyone except the mother should “mind their own business.” As imperfect as it was, Roe established that society has a legitimate governmental role in protecting fetal life, and that obligation increases as the fetus develops, particularly after viability. That concept is particularly relevant to the topic of this post since the legislation involves late term abortions. I feel personally compelled toward protecting embryonic and fetal life at earlier stages as well, but I would tend to advocate the “changing hearts and minds” approach instead of legislative means.
@CS – it’s a fetus. At the risk of sounding either flippant or sarcastic, why not be precise? IMO rhetorical cuteness undermines your “hearts and minds” argument.
And it’s not “an individual.” It’s a woman.
I believe Roe v Wade said just that — it IS the business of the mother and her doctor. It is not OUR business. Abortion zealots do not believe the Roe should be the law of the land and they are doing everything that they can to intimidate others into falling behind them in lockstep.
The TexasObserver has been Slashdotted because they dared to put an image on their cover that reflects Republican male attitudes towards women, as reflected in this year’s state legislatures.
Here’s the cover: http://twitpic.com/9446jh
Kathy, i’ll confess that i have no idea how to change hearts or minds without using some slightly less clinical terms than “fetus” or “embryo” since it’s necessary to consider the humanity of the unborn being before there’s even any reason for anyone to see a problem with abortion. I refuse to allow people to classify abortion as something akin to a tonsillectomy. I try to use the most neutral terms possible, avoiding objectionable terms like “baby” or “child”, but frankly i feel like you’re moving the goalposts even further here.
If that’s “cuteness”, i plead guilty i guess. I assume you are also aware that your tone and rhetoric will never sway anyone who doesn’t already agree with you. If that’s not your goal, it’s your prerogative to preach to the choir but personally i don’t see the point of engaging in that manner on a blog that invites people from all ranges of the ideological spectrum. To be clear, i don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing from a perspective of a decisive viewpoint, but clearly a respectful dialogue isn’t fostered by bombast and caricature of one’s ideological opponents.
And finally, your statement of what you feel that the Roe v Wade decision said is just inaccurate for late term pregnancies. The opinion didn’t state that abortion at all stages of pregnancy was strictly a decision between woman and doctor, it said:
(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.< \i>