# Georgia governor signs strictest abortion bill in nation **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 8, 2019, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659 "2019-05-08T09:49:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/61 "2019-05-08T22:07:28Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > 1. I have only a cursory understanding of this law (which is a good bit more than many of the Dopers posting in this thread have demonstrated), but I haven’t yet found anything in it I object to. > > 2. I don’t think there’s anything in the Constitution that precludes it. I understand that it is likely to run afoul of current Supreme Court precedent, but one of the goals is presumably to challenge that very precedent. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what SCOTUS says. I certainly hope they’ll find it Constitutional. > > 3. N/A > > 4. I haven’t given it much consideration, but probably not. More importantly, for this thread, I don’t believe this law does that, Slate’s nonsense notwithstanding. Lest any doubts remain, this is how authoritarianism and fascism become mainstream in an ostensibly free democratic society: 1. Restrict the ability of an identifiable segment of a population to exercise previously well established civil/personal rights. 2. Stack the courts and key government administrations to oppose any legal challenge to ensure overturn of standing law in favor of newly imposed restrictions. 3. Openly declare contempt for legal precedent and standing law by ignoring it entirely. 4. Trivialize and dismiss warnings of obviously dangerous downstream consequences of all of the above as mere alarmist “nonsense”. This right here is how some of the worst recorded events of human history repeat themselves. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/62 "2019-05-08T22:13:45Z")
Georgia banning most abortions after six weeks is so far down the list of “worst recorded events of human history” that I can’t help but laugh at your silly post. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/63 "2019-05-08T22:56:45Z")
As to the idea that this law (or some hypothetical future state law in Georgia or some other state) would make it illegal to travel to another state to get an abortion: From the GQ thread [Can a state punish you for doing something that is legal in another state but not in their state?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=875235) (which is actually [directly about that aspect of this law](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21631763&postcount=6)), **Tired and Cranky** [cites](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21631944&postcount=17) a 1974 SCOTUS decision, [_Bigelow v. Virginia_](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4759538477634429547&q=bigelow+v.+virginia&hl=en&as_sdt=20006), which would seem to rule that out: > [@](#): > > Neither could Virginia prevent its residents from traveling to New York to obtain those services or, as the State conceded, Tr. of Oral Arg. 29, prosecute them for going there. See United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745, 757-759 (1966); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 629-631 (1969); Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S., at 200. Virginia possessed no authority to regulate the services provided in New York—the skills and credentials of the New York physicians and of the New York professionals who assisted them, the standards of the New York hospitals and clinics to which patients were referred, or the practices and charges of the New York referral services. > > A State does not acquire power or supervision over the internal affairs of another State merely because the welfare and health of its own citizens may be affected when they travel to that State. It may seek to disseminate information so as to enable its citizens to make better informed decisions when they leave. But it may not, under the guise of exercising internal police powers, bar a citizen of another State from disseminating information about an activity that is legal in that State. This was, in fact, an abortion case; since it was about advertisements in Virginia newspapers, it had First Amendment implications which would not necessarily go away if the Supreme Court struck down the “right to privacy”-based _Roe_ and other decisions, but also wouldn’t necessarily apply to some hypothetical “traveling for an abortion”/“conspiring to help someone else travel for an abortion” case. However, _Bigelow_ does also seem to pretty clearly state (if only in passing) that a state may not “prevent its residents from traveling to [another state] to obtain [abortion] services or, as the State conceded, prosecute them for going there” (and there seems to be a string of precedents about that). Again, that statement likely falls outside the rationale for _Roe_ and the other abortion-rights decisions, and it therefore seems to me that SCOTUS would have to strike down more than just abortion rights to permit a state to prosecute its citizens merely for traveling to another state to do something that is legal in that other state (or even for “conspiring” to assist its citizens in traveling to another state to do something that is legal in that other state). (I am still not a lawyer.) ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/64 "2019-05-08T23:02:05Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Understand something, boy. > > I don’t care whether I convince or persuade you. I don’t write for you. You’re welcome to not respond, but do not appear to use the pejorative, “boy” in this fashion. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/65 "2019-05-08T23:35:59Z")
**HurricaneDitka** isn’t the only person to slog through the law. I did. Here are some oddities/points of interest: 1.The law is in fact **very different** from the previous law: _ **To amend Chapter 2 of Title 1** of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to persons and their rights, **so as to provide that natural persons include an unborn child** ; to provide that such unborn children shall be included in certain population based determinations…_ (bolding mine.) Note that unborn children will be counted in population-based determinations. I assume all physicians will have to report any pregnancy of over 6 weeks to some state government agency so it can be counted as part of the population. Of course, those women who don’t seek medical care until 8 weeks or after will make those numbers impossible to determine. 1. The law DOES allow for abortions before 20 weeks in cases where pregnancies are the result of rape or incest. This seems contradictory. If ALL embryos/fetuses with detectable heartbeats are “natural persons,” then why are _these_ embryos/fetuses excluded from that definition? 2. The law does allow exceptions for when the life of the mother is at stake or the fetus is not viable, but not for the cases in which the woman is suicidal. So she can’t have an abortion, but if a woman kills herself and therefore the fetus–two natural persons dead–apparently that’s preferable to that woman having an abortion. 3. Fathers will pay child support for embryos/fetuses: Section 5 of the bill amends current Georgia law to include embryos/fetuses, though the law restricts such support to > [@](#): > > the amount of direct medical and pregnancy related expenses of the > 187 mother of the unborn child. Of course, paternity can’t be determined until after birth. 1. **Rick Kitchen** : Yes. > [@](#): > > …relating to income taxes, so as to provide that an unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat is a dependent minor for income tax purposes. **HurricaneDitka** , you said you read the law and “haven’t found anything yet I object to.” I assume that includes the exclusion for rape and incest, even though such embryos/fetuses are not excluded from the definition of “natural persons”? ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/66 "2019-05-08T23:38:53Z")
For anyone interested, you can find the full text of the Georgia law [here.](http://http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20192020/187013.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/67 "2019-05-08T23:43:11Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > They’re not “chickenshit questions”. I’m trying to find out if there’s any real evidence to support **asahi** ’s claim about women “almost certainly” being jailed for miscarriages. They are chickenshit questions, because you and I know that you’d prefer to fixate on knocking down a particular claim without debating the actual issue at hand. > [@](#): > > 1. I don’t think there’s anything in the Constitution that precludes it. I understand that it is likely to run afoul of current Supreme Court precedent, but one of the goals is presumably to challenge that very precedent. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what SCOTUS says. I certainly hope they’ll find it Constitutional. So for consistency of arguments as long as you and I choose to participate on this board: your definition of the term “constitutional” relates only to one’s own reading and interpretation of the Constitution, without regard to precedent? So if my interpretation of a particular law is at odds with precedent, I’m free to say that my interpretation is better than the Supreme Court’s (at least until the Court rules specifically on my take on the issue) and you won’t challenge me on that? > [@](#): > > 1. I haven’t given it much consideration, but probably not. More importantly, for this thread, I don’t believe this law does that, Slate’s nonsense notwithstanding. The quality of your argument would be much inproved if you provided your own cite debunking Slate. Seeing as how you are asking people to support their assertions, you should support your own. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/68 "2019-05-08T23:44:49Z")
so how long until all these laws are struck down by SCOUTS in such a way that it leaves a "we’ve made our decision on this back in the 70s so quit trying to go around it " mark ? ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/69 "2019-05-08T23:47:46Z")
The SCOTUS certainly can decide a case that reverses a previous decision. For example they once said it was OK to outlaw gay sex but then they ruled it was not OK. And of course later ruled that gay marriage cannot be prevented by a state. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/70 "2019-05-08T23:48:28Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > so how long until all these laws are struck down by SCOUTS in such a way that it leaves a "we’ve made out decision on this back in the 70s quit trying to go around it " ? I think they’re hoping to slant the SCOTUS to the degree that the entire hyperconservative platform can be made federal law, and fuck what the populace in general wants. It’s not even really a secret - there’s a substantial slab of those who voted for Trump whose unsummarized reason for doing so was “judges”. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/71 "2019-05-08T23:52:08Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Do expectant mothers get to claim their fetuses as dependents on their taxes? I don’t know but I’m scratching my head over this one: > [@](#): > > (d) Unless otherwise provided by law, any natural person, including an unborn child with > 68 a detectable human heartbeat, shall be included in population based determinations. I’m scratching my head over what this means. Population based determinations? For like… what? Political representation? Like a 3/5 compromise, but instead it’s 5/5? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/72 "2019-05-09T00:14:59Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Georgia banning most abortions after six weeks is so far down the list of “worst recorded events of human history” that I can’t help but laugh at your silly post. Color me shocked that you would consider the restriction of women’s reproductive rights a laughing matter. Even less shocking is your disingenuous interpretation and response to what I actually said. Do people IRL let you get away with this bullshit? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/73 "2019-05-09T00:21:55Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Color me shocked that you would consider the restriction of women’s reproductive rights a laughing matter. Even less shocking is your disingenuous interpretation and response to what I actually said. Do people IRL let you get away with this bullshit? We shouldn’t be shocked by this kind of thing any more. Some folks just prove over and over again that they don’t think women should have full control of their own bodies. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/74 "2019-05-09T00:52:20Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Conservatives shouldn’t be doing this unless they have a 6-3 or 7-2 majority. There was a court case in 1992 where conservative appointees held an 8-1 advantage. The lone liberal appointee sided with the dissent in Roe V Wade. If you are just counting noses by political lean and previous decisions abortion should have been illegal in the US for decades now. By typical approach to counting votes we could have expected a unanimous overturning of Roe. That’s not what happened. That court produced a plurality opinion that upheld the central finding of Roe v Wade. It did create the “undue burden” standard for regulation and restriction of abortion that’s been behind most of the big abortion cases we’ve seen since. [See Planned Parenthood v Casey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_v._Casey) An older Atlantic article asks “URL=“[What Is a Conservative Judge? - The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/04/what-is-a-conservative-judge/38786/)”]What Is a Conservative Judge?” The label tends to lump together both judges who might be expected to decide differently when there is an existing precedent for a decision that seems liberal. Counting noses by who appointed them or even by their decisions on unrelated cases without long held precedent is filled with the possibility of errors. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/75 "2019-05-09T00:52:42Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > The SCOTUS certainly can decide a case that reverses a previous decision. For example they once said it was OK to outlaw gay sex but then they ruled it was not OK. And of course later ruled that gay marriage cannot be prevented by a state. Sure – but I would suggest that posters should pick a horse and ride it. If they want to define “constitutionality” as the state of the law as informed by case law, then that’s perfectly fair. If they want to define “constitutionality” as their own opinion of the Constitution while criticizing the case law as being inconsistent with their reading, I can see that in some circumstances. But to arbitrarily decide that one’s self can abide by the second definition while criticizing others for holding the first (or vice versa) sis not arguing in good faith in debates that touch on the law. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/76 "2019-05-09T03:26:24Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Same question for you: do you know how Georgia law handled second- or third-trimester abortions prior to this law being enacted? No. Can you establish the relevance so I can decide whether or not I should care? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/77 "2019-05-09T04:48:56Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > … **HurricaneDitka** , you said you read the law and “haven’t found anything yet I object to.” I assume that includes the exclusion for rape and incest, even though such embryos/fetuses are not excluded from the definition of “natural persons”? Yes. I generally consider the law an improvement over the status quo ante. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/78 "2019-05-09T04:51:29Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Color me shocked that you would consider the restriction of women’s reproductive rights a laughing matter. Even less shocking is your disingenuous interpretation and response to what I actually said. Do people IRL let you get away with this bullshit? People IRL don’t generally engage in the sort of extreme hyperbole you have here. It’s not the restrictions that’s a laughing matter, it’s your post. Some day I hope I find you in a thread on gun control so I can quote your words back to you. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/79 "2019-05-09T04:54:01Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > [This is the law that Georgia passed](http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20192020/187013.pdf). Which portion(s) of that bill will result in women “almost certainly” being jailed for miscarriages? Please cite a line number or section. > > I’ll help you get started: “miscarriage” is used precisely once in the bill, on line 108. I read the whole law. Nothing in there says it is illegal to leave the state to have an abortion, that habeas corpus will be available for unborn children, or that life imprisonment for the death penalty will be available punishments for women having abortions, or that a woman can be jailed for a miscarriage. The law leaves the current penalty for an illegal abortion intact: the doctor, not the woman can get 1 to 10 years in prison, same as before: > **[2022 Georgia Code :: Title 16 - Crimes and Offenses :: Chapter 12 - Offenses...](https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2014/title-16/chapter-12/article-5/section-16-12-140/)** > > Justia Free Databases of US Laws, Codes & Statutes The Slate article the OP quoted seems like a liberal horror list created by very bad misunderstandings of how the law works and not from anything in the text of the law itself. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/80 "2019-05-09T04:56:48Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > No. Can you establish the relevance so I can decide whether or not I should care? it’s my understanding that Georgia law has generally prohibited abortions after a certain point in pregnancy (recently, 22 weeks), and yet, I’m unaware of a single case of a woman in Georgia who had a miscarriage after that point in her pregnancy being jailed for it. Moving that point forward to ~6 weeks (which is what HB 481 did) does not seem to me to pose any additional danger of women being jailed for miscarriages. Providing examples of women jailed for miscarriages would go a long ways towards justifying **asahi** and your concerns. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659.md?page=5)