We are officially in post-Roe America. But here in Georgia, it’s about to get worse. The Georgia legislature passed a law in 2019 called the LIFE Act that would make it illegal to have an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, except in cases of rape, incest, medically unviable pregnancies, and natural miscarriage. That law was not constitutional at the time it was passed and therefore, it did not go into effect, but now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, the law will go into effect. Apparently, it is “constitutional” now. At the moment, the law is not yet being enforced, because it is held up in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, but the expectation is that this court will allow it to become enforceable law as soon as the court makes its decision, which could be any day now.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, “six weeks pregnant” actually means about four weeks after conception. So the law is even worse than it sounds. In reality, it is a heartbeat law. If the doctor can hear a heartbeat, which begins at about four weeks after conception, then it is illegal to get an abortion, except for the exceptions listed above. And those exceptions might go away: Republican state legislators are already in the process of proposing even more restrictive anti-abortion laws. If you value your rights to bodily autonomy, whether or not you personally can be pregnant, then vote for Democrats this fall and urge your friends and family to as well! And vote Democrat down the entire ballot! Now that the Supreme Court has desecrated the official interpretation of the constitution, many of our rights and freedoms will be in the hands of state legislators to decide. If we turned Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats blue, then we can turn the Georgia legislature blue, too!
