Last week, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law one of the most stringent abortion laws in any state in the nation to date.
The law, which is known as the “heartbeat bill” and takes effect in 2020, states that any fetus with a heartbeat is a person.
The law prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is sometimes before women know they are pregnant, or six weeks. Later abortions still are allowed if the impregnated woman was a victim of rape or incest, if her life is in danger, or if the fetus would not be able to survive after birth. To obtain an abortion after six weeks because of rape or incest, a woman would have to file a police report.
Any doctor or nurse who performs an abortion is required under law to report it to the state.
And any doctor or nurse who performs an abortion, or pharmacist who provides medications to induce an abortion for reasons other than the exceptions in the law, could be charged with homicide. An impregnated woman who has an abortion for reasons other than the exceptions or performs an abortion on herself could also be charged with homicide.
That is, the doctors, nurses, pharmacists and impregnated women could face felony charges. If convicted of those charges, they could go to prison for many years. (And we don’t need to remind you that Black people tend to get longer prison sentences than white people who commit the same crimes.)
And then, when they get out of prison, they wouldn’t be able to vote. They might have trouble finding jobs.
They would, essentially, become non-citizens.
Now consider that similar measures have been proposed — and passed—in other states.
Governors in Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have signed similar laws. A federal judge in Kentucky blocked the law there, and a federal judge in Mississippi is expected to hear a challenge of that state’s anti-abortion law later this month.
Lawmakers in Tennessee and South Carolina have pressed for fetal heartbeat laws, and the Arkansas legislature has narrowed the time frame during which women can have abortions.
Lawmakers in Alabama are considering an even more stringent law that would ban abortions at every stage of pregnancy unless the impregnated woman’s health was at “serious risk.” At press time, the lawmakers still were debating whether to make exceptions for women who were victims of rape or incest.
Under the proposed Alabama law, any doctor who performs an abortion could be charged with a felony and sentenced to up to 99 years in prison. Women would be exempt from prosecution.
And a proposal in Texas would allow capital punishment for anyone who received or performs an abortion.
With the push for these laws, conservative anti-choice advocates are taking a page from the progressive playbook.
Progressives got marriage equality legalized state by state before the issue went to the Supreme Court. They have been working to do the same with the decriminalization and legalization of recreational marijuana.
Some conservatives are trying to get abortion criminalized state by state. They are hoping to bring one of their laws up through the court system to challenge Roe v. Wade.
Tom McClusky, president of March for Life Action, which opposes abortion, told The Washington Post that bills like Georgia’s “lay the groundwork for pushing the envelope of life even farther” and that the anti-abortion movement is looking to the Supreme Court to resolve the longstanding debate around abortion.
“What we’d like to do is change the culture so that no family facing this situation would think of the option of abortion,” he told the Post.
Making abortion a felony—for the doctor, nurse, pharmacist or impregnated woman—is not the way to do that.
Rending people non-citizens is not the way to do that.
Further marginalizing people who might already be marginalized is not the way to do that.
(Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune)
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