Near-total abortion ban draws strong emotions at legislative hearing

A hearing in the General Assembly Wednesday on a proposed near-total ban on abortion in Georgia pitted preachers against physicians.

House Bill 441 calls for extending the state’s current law prohibiting abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected – typically after about six weeks of pregnancy – to ban abortions at every stage of an embryo’s development from fertilization to birth.

“Tens of thousands of babies made in the image of God continue to be murdered in our state every year,” state Rep. Emory Dunahoo, R-Gillsville, the bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the House Judiciary Committee (Non-Civil) Committee. “This bill simply ensures that those same laws protecting the lives of people after birth equally protect the lives of people before birth.”

Dunahoo’s bill provides exceptions for spontaneous miscarriages, situations where a woman is pressured to undergo an abortion, and cases where doctors are trying to save the life of a mother. But it does not allow exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

Democrats on the committee argued such a strict ban on abortions would discourage doctors already afraid to perform the procedures since lawmakers adopted the “heartbeat” bill from performing even those abortions Dunahoo’s bill would allow.

“Doctors don’t know how to interpret these laws,” said Rep. Dar’shun Kendrick, D-Lithonia.

“This bill is putting every traumatized woman in a position to worry if they’re going to be prosecuted for a miscarriage,” added Rep. Shea Roberts, D-Atlanta.

Several ob-gyns warned that the legislation would nullify a bill also before the General Assembly this year aimed at protecting in vitro fertilization in Georgia.

“This bill, if you vote for it, I cannot work,” said Dr. Karenne Fru, who owns a fertility clinic in Sandy Springs. “I cannot go to jail because I want people to become parents.”

But Christian ministers and right-to-life advocates said abortion goes against the teachings of the Bible, no matter at what stage it occurs.

“An elective abortion takes the life of an innocent human being, whether it occurs two days after fertilization, six weeks, or 40 weeks,” said Dr. Coleman Boyd, a family medicine doctor and anti-abortion activist from Mississippi.

The committee took no action on the bill. The measures faces long odds in the General Assembly since it was introduced just two weeks before last month’s Crossover Day and did not make it through the House before that annual deadline for bills to clear at least one legislative chamber to remain alive for the year.