I've read every word of HB481 and the codes associated with it. If you have a uterus in the state of Georgia, here is what you should know:
STARTING JANUARY 1, 2020,
1. Anyone with a uterus that is 6 weeks pregnant ( 2 weeks late ) with an embryo that has a detectable heartbeat will be forced to carry it to full-term.
2. An embryo with a detectable heartbeat, as early as 6 weeks, will be considered a "natural person".
3. An embryo with a heartbeat, as early as 6 weeks, will be eligible for population based determinants and will qualify as dependent minors on income tax forms.
4. Leaving the state to get an abortion elsewhere will cause you to be liable to a charge of Conspiracy to Murder, punishment could be from 1 to 15 years in prison.
5. Abortion will be considered equal to the homicide of a child which is charged as Second-Degree Murder, punishable by a sentence of up to 30 years in prison or by capital punishment.
6. "Spontaneous Abortion" includes miscarriages and stillbirths. Investigations will follow.
7. If you are able to get an abortion, then a district attorney of the judicial circuit of your residence will be given access to all of your health records.
8. The "father" / fertilizer will be liable for medical and pregnancy payment needs for the mother. Mandatory child support payments will begin at birth.
9. The only way to obtain an abortion in Georgia legally is if a licensed medical physician determines that you are
• at life-threatening medical risk
• mentally and emotionally well
• within 20 weeks / 5 months of pregnancy
- - - - -
*Does not include ectopic pregnancies
**DOES include any pregnancy caused by incest or rape, unless a police report is filed by the time gestation reaches between 13-20 weeks / 3-5 months.
Women who miscarry or get legal abortions out of state could also be imprisoned.
On Tuesday, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a “fetal heartbeat” bill that seeks to outlaw abortion after about six weeks. The measure, HB 481, is the most extreme abortion ban in the country—not just because it would impose severe limitations on women’s reproductive rights, but also because it would subject women who get illegal abortions to life imprisonment and the death penalty.
The primary purpose of HB 481 is to prohibit doctors from terminating any pregnancy after they can detect “embryonic or fetal cardiac activity,” which typically occurs at six weeks’ gestation. But the bill does far more than that. In one sweeping provision, it declares that “unborn children are a class of living, distinct person” that deserves “full legal recognition.” Thus, Georgia law must “recognize unborn children as natural persons”—not just for the purposes of abortion, but as a legal rule.
This radical revision of Georgia law is quite deliberate: The bill confirms that fetuses “shall be included in population based determinations” from now on, because they are legally humans, and residents of the state. But it is not clear whether the bill’s drafters contemplated the more dramatic consequences of granting legal personhood to fetuses. For instance, as Georgia appellate attorney Andrew Fleischman has pointed out, the moment this bill takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020, the state will be illegally holding thousands of citizens in jail without bond. That’s because, under HB 481, pregnant inmates’ fetuses have independent rights—including the right to due process. Can a juvenile attorney represent an inmate’s fetus and demand its release? If not, why? It is an egregious due process violation to punish one human for the crimes of another. If an inmate’s fetus is a human, how can Georgia lawfully detain it for a crime it did not commit?
I've seen some of your post on the bullshit heartbeat bill in your state and I'm just wondering how you're dealing.
I have stared at this ask for a while, wondering whether or not I wanted to get in depth into this conversation. But I do have a lot to say on the matter. A while back I drafted a blog post that I toyed with sharing, but ultimately held off. Until now.
There’s…a lot to be covered.
First, thank you for sparking me to put this out there. I feel as though it’s important enough to say what I have to say on this. And though this platform is usually used for fandom stuff (I use other platforms for my political stuff), I’m not afraid to get real now and again.
Second, let me state that I have a background in medicine and a family heavily involved and working in politics…so I know how this goes.
I’m going to pre-empt this by saying that I am not going to argue with anyone who is pro-life who reads and disagrees. If you agree, great. If you disagree, there is no point in trying to fight me…because we will never see eye to eye.
This is strictly an argument based on why I’m against politics and religion in medicine. I am not looking for a debate here. There is no debate to be had. If you can’t look at things without religion, or if you can’t understand scientific/medical facts it’s a moot point.
It’s a long one. Saddle up.
Religion vs. Medicine:
Christianity should have no place in medicine (the bible condemns polyester blends, playing with pigskin, gambling, and divorce, but Christians still shop til they drop, support football, play the lottery, and divorce their spouses). Yet we get lawmakers constantly using the bible as a talking point (”Thank God” and “As God intended”) for this argument and ignoring testimony from physicians with degrees in science.
Men (with the exception of those whose sperm fertilized an egg in a consensual act) should have no say in what happens inside of a uterus that does not belong to them (and even then, it should be a discussion between those two people and their doctor, not a government made up of religious zealot white women and white-boys without uteri).
The government should not infringe upon individual rights of medical privacy via HIPAA.
Basically:
If you can not argue without the basis of religion (or you keep using “God” or The Bible as your baseline) or if you are not someone who has a uterus or in the medical profession or a woke dude/lady, you have no fucking say.
If you are a Christian forcing your beliefs upon the population based upon a magical book that has absolutely no proof, you have no fucking say. (see Separation of Church and State).
If you are a politician forcing your agenda upon every person with a uterus based upon something you can absolutely never experience, you have no fucking say.
If you do not have a background in science and you’re basing your opinions upon a movie (”Unplanned”) that is nothing more than political propaganda (and a pro-life “advocate” who saw dollar signs and a means to fame) then you have no fucking say (and yes, I’ve seen the film, which was nothing more than a religious backed, over-dramatized flick poorly representing abortions and relied heavily upon cheap emotional manipulation and inaccurate CGI). As someone who has seen medical procedures…it was exaggerated in the film. It is absolutely not a representation of safe and legal abortions. It also does not address the confidentiality between patient/doctor (See HIPAA and the testimony of physicians in this matter).
The fact of the matter is that people who are informed, intelligent, and know about the subject in depth are against these abortion bans, because they know it’s extreme and infringes upon basic rights. This includes women, our allies, and in some cases…people who are religiouswho stand with the pro-choice movement (I see you all, too, don’t doubt that…this is not a reflection upon men and Christians in general. This is about the extremists).
If you fall into the extreme religious or non-medical community category or you are a politician with no medical training and you’re writing bills and arguing against basic human rights…you can shut the fuck up.
***
For the sake of facts, let’s break it down:
-Sexual education can be informative, and the preventatives used to prevent pregnancy can fail. Condoms break. The pill can fail (and let’s not even get into the horrible side effects that contraceptives have on women. Let’s talk about the fact that there was actually a birth control for men that companies tried to put on the market, but the side effects were too ‘dangerous’. Sure, like high blood pressure and hormonal imbalances are something women look forward to). But yeah, let’s put all the responsibility on the woman.
-Women are raped, and given the trauma that occurs…they should not have to PROVE they were raped in order to receive medical treatment…including abortion. It’s horrific enough as it is, and there is NO wrong way to deal with the trauma. They shouldn’t have an additional stigma to be treated medically.
-Women who tend to make the choice to have an abortion have looked at their options and have made an informed CHOICE (that’s what this is about). And it’s not always at the 6-8 week mark, because hey…there are things such as irregular periods. Cis-men hating on women, let’s talk about women’s reproduction for a minute. Have you ever spent 7 days bleeding out of an orifice of your body? Have you ever shed the lining of an internal organ? Have you ever had blood clots inside of your body that feel like fucking death? Have you ever had your panties soaked in blood? Have you ever gotten stressed and missed a period or had medical issues that caused you to have irregular cycles? No? Okay, so how about the stressors of pregnancy? How about the changes a woman’s body goes through? How about the emotional and physical toll it takes? Truth is, hetero-normal men who are so deep-set in their beliefs will NEVER view women as equal. Reality is…we women areintelligent enough to make our own decisions.
-An embryo at 6-8 weeks is not viable. The so called “heartbeat” is an electrical activity in a group of cells that is at maximum a few inches long. There is no heartbeat, because there IS no heart. It hasn’t formed. There is not a cardiovascular system. It’s a vibration in a cell. It is ONLY active because of the woman. At this point it is NOT a child. I see pro-life/pro-birth people going, “but…but SCIENCE…Life at conception!” without understanding the depth of their actual words. The medical community knows their shit. And people can challenge them all they want with their opinions upon when life is sentient, but the truth is that there is no brain activity this early because IT IS NOT A HUMAN. It is an embryo, which can not exist without the mother’s body. Yet politicians use the term “heartbeat” because they know there are uneducated people out there who will eat it up and back them.
-Abortion is situational, and trying to force a law upon women based upon the preconceived notion that ALL women are using it as a form of birth control is ignorant, ill-informed, and extremely sanctimonious. There are numerous reasons for abortion, and none of them are the government’s fucking business.
Why religion and politics is a slippery slope in medicine:
Using a religious bias in a political war is against everything in the judiciary and legislative branch, and it is a slippery slope that is dangerous to patient care. When we start listening to “Gods” and evangelical people over actual physicians there is a huge problem. Ask yourself this question: if you were dying and a surgery could save your life…would you call a priest to perform the procedure? Or a licensed physician? If you choose a priest, enjoy seeing your version of the afterlife, because you’re going to die.
Abby Johnson (”Unplanned) is not a doctor. She is someone who “found God” and is using that to exploit the situation with her own views as a claim to fame. She ran a Planned Parenthood (in her own words). ONE chapter, which means it’s a FRACTION of the actual unit. She does not have a PHD. Her accusations against physicians are bullshit and is frankly an insult to actual doctors who perform safe medical procedures every day.
Politicians have no knowledge of medical protocols and treatments (and in a lot of cases know an embarrassingly low amount about women’s reproductive organs). And in many cases it is old white men (and religious white women) dictating what a woman can do with her body. If you think that’s okay, you’re part of the problem.
Religious zealots hold fast to beliefs written in a fairytale rather than learn the scientific facts associated with the base of their argument. They can’t grasp the concept that an organism can be created in a petrie dish with a “beating heart”, because of muscle contractions, not because it’s “alive” or “sentient”. They would rather blindly follow a God that may or may not exist rather than listen to educated physicians who know the topic.
Rapid fire question: if an unconscious woman and a frozen embryo were in a burning building and you could only save one of them, which one would you choose? Something that is not aware and is only a potential for life? Or the actual living breathing human?
This shit is not about “saving babies”. Politicians couldn’t give a shit about babies after they are born. It’s about controlling women/trans-folk and telling people what they can do with their body (it’s funny how Republican politicans haven’t outlawed smoking or drinking, because hey…that kills you! “AnD wE aRE PRo-LiFE!”).
Anyone who can’t see that all these abortion laws are just plays for politicians to pursue their own political pursuits is an idiot.
A Note about Georgia’s Abortion Law/Kemp
In my state, there was talks that Kemp was overheard saying that even if he wanted to veto the bill he couldn’t due to “his campaign promises”. Which is absolute bullshit, because given the polls…he knew that a majority of the people in his state are against it. This bill was co-sponsored by three men and three women who are basing it heavily upon religious purposes (if you don’t believe me, look up Ed Setzler, he’s been quoted several times leaning on religious propaganda for this bill). It was then voted through by a bunch of old white men.
Convenient how they threw the one token woman up front (but honestly, fuck her…because she should know better). The fact of the matter is that those who voted on this are a bunch of “good ole boys” with religious principles trying to bypass the fact that there is a separation of church and state. This bill has had numerous polls conducted to the constituents, and while they were divided…the PRO-CHOICE voice won every single poll. Put this up for a vote and I guarantee this would not become a law.
Kemp waited weeks to sign this (unlike the governor of Alabama).
Why?
Because he knew that most of his constituents were against this (given the polls that were conducted), but due to political pressure he couldn’t veto for fear that he’d lose the religious/deeply rooted republican votes. Even Kemp seemed to realize that this is against the moral rights of his citizens. But he doesn’t give a shit. Because as long as his pockets are lined with money and he can ignore his constituents, it’s all gravy for him.
To take this a step further, this asshole is the man who pointed a gun at a kid jokingly in an age where school shootings are rampant, as a joke…for political purposes. Cuz, ya know…violence is funny.
He’s “pro-life” but he shoots things.
This man is sponsored by the National Hunting and Fishing association, who supports killing living breathing things with a heartbeat for sport or “because it tastes good”.
I challenge anyone who is so “pro-heartbeat” to never shoot their guns again to kill something. Because hey, life is so precious to you, right? You value heartbeats so effing much, stop killing living breathing things. Nut up or shut up.
Actually, no, don’t nut up. That’s the reason for unplanned pregnancies in the first place. Just shut up.
…that will never happen. And you want to know why?
Because this is not about life. They don’t give a shit about “life”. This is about power. This is about control.
If you can’t see that an entire gender is being used for political gain then you need to wake the fuck up.
I’ll end this by saying that, yes, there might be some common ground that can be found here. In the people out there fighting every day for their rights. In the allies we have coming out of the woodworks. In the physicians who fought like hell for us in court.
I’m not an unreasonable person. I do believe in sensible laws. These bans are not sensible. They’re a power play. And that’s fucked up. And as much as I’d love to pack up and leave, I don’t have that option. A lot of people don’t (and in fact, I think the “Boycott GA” movement is so fucking stupid, because that doesn’t hurt the people in power. It hurts the PEOPLE).
So if you’re pissed off, remember this at the polls. Know who your reps are. And if they are for this bullshit, vote their asses out.
Flip their fucking seats.
I’m tired, you guys. Let’s get our rights back. Let’s take our state back.
Georgia: IF YOU LEAVE THE STATE TO GET AN ABORTION YOU WILL BE PROSECUTED . IF YOU HAVE A MISCARRIAGE YOU WILL BE INTERROGATED. IF YOU HELP A WOMAN GET AN ABORTION YOU ARE A MURDER.
I don’t normally go super political, but here we go.
HB 481 (aka the GA Heartbeat Bill) was blocked from going into effect in the Georgia courts...
BUT...it’s not over.
Don’t forget that lawmakers IGNORED their constituents. Don’t let this be the end of it just because we won one battle. They will do this again (and they will appeal, I’m sure).
The only way we can keep this from continuing...
VOTE THEM OUT!
If you are not registered to vote (I’m looking at all you, Generation Z kids, cuz a lot of you are old enough to make a difference now), please do so. Please show up and speak at the polls (and here’s to hoping they aren’t rigged again).
It’s easy:
1) Check your voter status at https://www.mvp.sos.ga.gov/MVP/mvp.do
2) If you are not registered to vote, please do so.
3) Find out who your representatives are (you may also do this at the aforementioned website).
4) Vote in ALL elections (it’s not just the presidential election that matters! In fact, it’s equally as important to be involved in your local elections so you can have someone in office who actually LISTENS to you).
We honestly came sooo close to flipping Georgia. There was a 2-3% margin of error. FLIP IT.
