Tag: Georgia

The Life of the Mother, The Grief of Her Child: What Abortion Bans Take From Us

A 6-year-old boy faces life without his mother, Amber Nicole Thurman, because of an abortion ban. Candi Miller died at home with her 3-year-old daughter beside her, after her teenage son watched her suffer for days, because she was too scared to seek follow-up abortion and miscarriage care. And in Indiana, Taysha Wilkinson-Sobieski, a 26-year-old mom of one, died after she could not access timely reproductive healthcare for an ectopic pregnancy.

As someone who lost my mother as a teenager and who worked with grieving children as a volunteer, I implore you to imagine the powerless feeling of watching your mother’s last moments, wishing you could save her. Imagine the rage you would feel if you knew she could have been saved, but some politician did not care enough about her life to write a clear, evidence-based law that protected it.

Abortion in Georgia Can Resume Up to 22 Weeks of Pregnancy After Court Ruling

“It is generally men who promote and defend laws like the LIFE Act, the effect of which is to require only women … to engage in compulsory labor,” wrote Fulton County Superior Judge Robert McBurney.

“Georgia’s six-week ban left millions of people across a wide swath of the South facing drives of hundreds of miles to North Carolina and Virginia,” said Caitlin Myers, an economist at Middlebury College who studies abortion travel patterns. “Now, as long as the ban isn’t enforced, Georgia residents as well as people from Florida, Alabama and parts of Tennessee are going to be much closer to services.”

Abortion Opponents Use Deaths of Two Georgia Women to Push Dangerous Lies About Abortion Pills

After reports emerged that two women died as a result of Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, abortion opponents are callously using these tragic deaths to fuel false claims that abortion pills are dangerous and to push for FDA removal of mifepristone from the market.

Rather than calling on legislators to clarify life-saving exceptions, abortion opponents are doubling down on misinformation they’ve been peddling for years about the safety of abortion pills.

Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.

Tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, a panel of experts, including 10 doctors, deemed Amber Nicole Thurman’s death “preventable” and said the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a “large” impact on her fatal outcome.

Thurman’s case marks the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed “preventable,” is coming to public light.

Their reviews of individual patient cases are not made public. But ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state. There are almost certainly others. Though Republican lawmakers who voted for state bans on abortion say the laws have exceptions to protect the “life of the mother,” medical experts cautioned that the language is not rooted in science and ignores the fast-moving realities of medicine.

A Georgia Law Restricts What Educators Say in the Classroom—But I Refuse to Be Silent

Reading may be fundamental to students’ education, but according to Georgia lawmakers, this is only the case if the ideas students read do not reflect “divisive concepts.” On such matters, educators are supposed to remain silent. 

Georgia’s so-called divisive concepts law does not expressly define the term. Therefore, even those who may wish to comply with the regulation can have trouble understanding what is prohibited.

As both a mother and a college department chair, I am concerned about these and other legislative actions, which aim to silence certain ideas. My perspective as a racialized minority matters.

‘I Made the Best Decision for Me, My Body and My Family—Even My Unborn Child’: Georgia Rep. Shea Roberts’ Abortion Story

Amidst the current attacks in the United States on women and abortion, legislators are sharing their abortion stories, demonstrating the importance of safe and accessible abortion.

Georgia state Rep. Shea Roberts (D), a mother, attorney and small business owner, had an abortion over 15 years ago, back when Roe v. Wade was still in effect. After losing her first race for the statehouse in 2018 by 1,200 votes, she went on to win her race in 2020 and has since used her platform to share her abortion story. 

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Republican Women Urge Haley to Stay in the Race; Georgia Trailblazer Sen. Gloria Butler Will Not Seek Reelection

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: RepresentWomen’s Democracy Solutions Summit, March 5-7, is the only summit to feature all women experts; Republican women are urging Haley to stay in the race; Georgia state Senator Gloria Butler will not seek reelection; and more.

The Trump Trials Are Set to Begin in Georgia

Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell—both former lawyers for Trump—were indicted by a Fulton County grand jury in mid-August, alongside 17 others, including Trump himself. All 19 co-defendants are charged under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

On Thursday, Oct. 19, Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts—five counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties, and one count of conspiracy to commit theft—making her the second defendant to flip on Trump and cooperate with prosecutors. Powell was supposed to go to trial on Monday with co-defendant Chesebro. With Powell’s plea deal, Chesebro will go to trial solo next week.

“The basic thrust is, is that while all of those defendants did slightly different things and engaged in slightly different discrete acts of criminal activity, they all were engaged in one unlawful purpose, which was to overturn the 2020 election,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at the Georgia State University College of Law, on a recent episode of On the Issues with Michele Goodwin.

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Georgia Considers Ranked-Choice Voting, Not Runoffs; Biden Confirms Most Women Judges in History

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: Feminist icon Dorothy Pitman Hughes was a critical voice for issues of race, class and motherhood; Georgia could save voters and taxpayers time, energy and money with ranked-choice voting, rather than runoffs; South Korea’s new president is trying to end the Gender Equality Ministry; remembering feminist icon Dorothy Pitman Hughes; and more.