I couldn't believe what I had read when I went through that 10-page document. I found a lot of cocky, pride-induced jargon that was nothing more than a means to take away a woman's right to protect herself. I scrutinized the bill line by line and this is what I came up with:
"1 To amend the Official Code of Georgia Annotated so as to provide that prenatal murder shall 2 be unlawful in all events and to remove numerous references to such procedures"
What are they trying to prove by calling this “prenatal murder?" Scare tactics are always a hoot and is the best way to make people feel like you are protecting them from the people in this country who are not completely opposed to abortion. Way to go, Georgia.
"14 (a) The State of Georgia has the duty to protect all innocent life from the moment of 15 conception until natural death. We know that life begins at conception. After nearly four 16 decades of legal human prenatal murder, it is now abundantly clear that the practice has 17 negatively impacted the people of this state in many ways, including economic, health, 18 physical, psychological, emotional, and medical well-being. These, too, are areas of 19 legitimate concern and duty of this state."
I love that they are calling this a “duty.” Are they trying to get at "taking a life should be the consequence of taking a "life?" "Kill" the killer of the embryo or fetus. First, they make the legislation to women saying they can't play God with their own bodies only to show that they are going to play God by killing the ones trying to protect themselves.
The piece of legislation has a section that states: "123 (d) Any person committing prenatal murder in this state shall be guilty of a felony and, 124 upon conviction, shall be punished as provided in subsection (d) of Code Section 16-5-1." I looked up subsection (d) of Code Section 16-5-1 and found this: 16-5-1: Murder, felony: (d) A person convicted of the offense of murder shall be punished by death, by imprisonment for life without parole, or by imprisonment for life."
Georgia has asked for women who receive abortion to be charged with the felony of murder and either be sentenced to death or life in prison. Unbelievable.
Believing that real life is created at the moment of conception is a debatable topic. I learned through research that the baby doesn’t develop a heart until about 3 weeks in. I would say this could be the starting point at which I would no longer be okay with a woman having an abortion, but there are flaws with that, too. If I truly believed the presence of a heart could be considered the beginning of life, I would have to come up with a definition for life as evidence. I'm not qualified to do that, but neither is Georgia. If anything, allow the woman to make up her own mind for her own definition of life if the situation is more than just some accidental pregnancy. You can't kill someone for having something unfortunate doen to them which caused their own life to be at stake.
And why use “innocent?” Are they just trying to say that since one second after conception a baby is made, it automatically becomes innocent? I don’t understand that. It's just more scare tactic jargon to bring on more guilt.
The second half of that makes you wonder if they ever stopped to think that they were the ones about to cause negative impacts on some woman’s emotional and medical well-being. A woman who wants to get an abortion and can’t because she’ll be charged with a felony. Talk about negative impact on emotions AND VERY POSSIBLE MEDICAL WELL BEING. Women who can’t afford to pay for a child and don’t think of adoption will have negative economic impacts and broadened negative psychological impacts. Not everyone in this world has the means to not get pregnant and then seek out help to find out what she can do about it. Just because we live in the “land of luxury” doesn’t mean that everyone else does too. There are women out there who make mistakes and should have to pay for it, but there are others who have no choice and shouldn't be forced to make a choice of either their life or the life of a clump of undifferentiated cells.
"25 No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws."
"28 (3) Justice Blackmun, writing for the majority in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), 29 wrote: 'when those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and 30 theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the 31 development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer [to the 32 question of when life begins].' 33 (4) The General Assembly knows the answer to that difficult question, and that answer 34 is life begins at the moment of conception;"
So, in other words, Georgia just said, “Who cares if they don’t agree. We make up our own mind and we do what we want.” As my fiancé said to me when I read him this “why don’t they just break away from the union and become their own entity then!” I completely agree. There may not be a muzzle big enough to hold GA back from running buck wild."86 (19) However, denying to a state the right to define and punish a crime not specified in 87 the United States Constitution is a per se legislative act; 88 (20) The nullification of a state's properly promulgated laws is specifically delineated as 89 an offense committed by King George III against the states, for which separation became 90 necessary; The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America;"
Sure, they know their history and its seething with pride. They complain about their freedom to kill while attacking someone’s freedom to “kill." Simple as that. And I put the second “kill” in quotations because in my opinion, and as shown by science of the child development, no heart until 3 weeks in. At 13-14 days, the undifferentiated clump of cells is called an embryo. It’s still not a baby. It’s like a worm. Like those ones fisherman use every Sunday before/after church to catch all that delicious trout. No remorse for those.
"91 (21) Compliance with, and continuation of, a fiat determination of the Supreme Court 92 from nearly 40 years ago will cause the basis of this Union, and eventually the Union 93 itself, to fall; 94 (22) Georgia was not a party to the suit in Roe v. Wade, and is not bound by a decision 95 in which it did not have right of participation; 96 (23) Georgia is not restricted in its duty to its citizens due to the failure of the State of 97 Texas to properly plead 'lack of subject matter jurisdiction';"
It wasn't our fault and it's not our fault that we have to pass this legislation now. It's Texas' fault because their just stupid. ...COCKY PRIDE FILLED CRAP. They may not have been involved in Roe vs. Wade, but they were involved in another controversial abortion case. In Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography from Plains to Postpresidency, early in his term as governor, Carter had strongly supported family planning programs including abortion in order to save the life of a mother, birth defects, or in other extreme circumstances. Years later, he had written the foreword to a book, Women in Need, that favored a woman's right to abortion. He had given private encouragement to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit, Doe v. Bolton, filed against the state of Georgia to overturn its archaic abortion laws. So stop acting like your some separate country with a separate amount of rules or leave.
"103 (26) The act of prenatal murder has caused a significant reduction in the number of 104 citizens in this state who would serve as workers, entrepreneurs, teachers, employees, and 105 employers who would have significantly contributed to the prosperity and continuation 106 of this state; and 107 (27) The failure to prosecute a violation of this Code section is a violation of the 108 obligation of this state to provide all of its citizens with an equal protection of the laws."
Let’s see. In this economy where more and more teachers, workers, employees and employers are losing their jobs while entrepreneurs are failing miserably to get off the ground and not taking in profit for 10 years, you want to make abortion illegal so those children can grow up and have this happen all over again to them so they can get the same economic failure experience we are having now? Great. Because we all know this is going to happen again in another 4 years or so. That's just how the United States rings around the mulberry bush. Well, if Georgia believes in a religion, and I know she does, then maybe all those dead babies who were aborted will be able to contribute to the prosperity of your poor little state by forgiving those mothers you killed for aborting them in the first place while they float around in the sad heavens of aborted fetuses. Problem solved! (Scare tactic, cruel jargon!)
"155 Code Section 20-2-773 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to restrictions on 156 student health services and utilization of state funds, is amended by revising subsection (a) 157 as follows: 158 "(a) No facility operated on public school property or operated by a public school district 159 and no employee of any such facility acting within the scope of such employee's 160 employment shall provide any of the following health services to public school students: 161 distribute contraceptives. 162 (1) Distribution of contraceptives; 163 (2) Performance of abortions; 164 (3) Referrals for abortion; or 165 (4) Dispensing abortifacients."
"186 SECTION 2.12 187 Said title is further amended by repealing in its entirety Chapter 9A, the "Woman's Right to Know Act."
(2) "Medical emergency" means any condition which, on the basis of the physician's good faith clinical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant female as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial or irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.
To the best of knowledge, "repeal" means "to remove or reverse a law." So, what I've gathered here is special circumstance or not, you do it and your done. There is no such thing as a special circumstance.
I posed a question on Facebook a few days ago with a link to the Mother Jones article. I said "A girl, 16, is raped by her father. She gets pregnant, and since SHE is against abortion she decides to have the child regardless. However, before the 8-week cut off to call it a fetus, when she goes to the doctor he tells her that if she has the baby, she will have a 1% chance of survival. There are an abundance of possibilities why she could die, including -- but not limited to -- obstructed labor, eclampsia, a condition found in family history, weight, etc. But, in this hypothetical, there are no other options for her. She's going to die -- period. Now, she's having doubts about her views on abortion. Is it right to let her die or should the embryo be aborted?
A very interesting debate arose between two people when I posted the link to the article and when I posed that question. One person, who was already not against abortion, said she shouldn't have to die. The other person, who was against abortion for the most part but not entirely, also said she shouldn't die. Another person I asked the same question to who is against abortion completely said the woman should die.
In the end, the three views were different because one was Catholic, one was a Catholic on a thin line and one was an atheist. After I let the debate between the thin-lined Catholic and atheist go on for a while, I chimed in with my question. After I got answers to the initial question, I threw a wrench in the mix and said this:
"Ok. She decides to end the pregnancy. Her father shows up. Since he has legal custody of her and there is no evidence of yet to actual rape, he says he wants her to go through with the pregnancy because (insert random biblical reference to ...abortion--we all know they're there.) He will not agree to prenatal DNA testing (which is possible).Police were called but in fear of her father being present, the girl refuses testing to determine if she was raped by him or not and never changes her mind. The police need consent from someone to investigate and they don't have it. When the father is told of her low risk of survival, he makes ANOTHER biblical reference and still insists on making her go through with the pregnancy. Should religion be brought into a situation like this? Where does the line get drawn?"
The point I was trying to make is that the legality of abortion is based on religion, and that's wrong. If I believed it was or not, it's still wrong. You can't let someone die because an unconfirmed figure said so. But in the end, if the hypothetical circumstance I questioned happened, the girl would die because God said she should. The majority of people against abortion would let the girl die because God said so and Georgia wants to kill the women who have abortions because God said so.
At the end of the day, religion trumps as always and the biased view taken is not taken as a biased view. There is no such thing as freedom of religion by the way. People wouldn't die for religion and be killed for their religion today, yesterday, 100 years ago and the day "Jesus was crucified" if there was such a thing. There never has been and I fear that there never will be.
The atheists, agnostics, skeptics, etc. are always pushed aside to let religion shine through like it's some sort of gift. Just like Catholics and other religious groups believe that a child is created at the time the sperm reaches the egg and that the embryo created is a gift from God.
In the case I presented, the woman, a human being of only 16, was clearly pushed to the side by her father because of his religious beliefs. The hospital told her the risks and attempted to save her life by doing so. That's the only objective way to look at abortion. If you want it, these are the risks and you take them as you see fit. If you want to die, die. If you want to live, try. But don't let something like religion/God, a tool of manipulation and scare tactics, make the decisions for you.
At the end of the day, religion trumps as always and the biased view taken is not taken as a biased view. There is no such thing as freedom of religion by the way. People wouldn't die for religion and be killed for their religion today, yesterday, 100 years ago and the day "Jesus was crucified" if there was such a thing. There never has been and I fear that there never will be.
The atheists, agnostics, skeptics, etc. are always pushed aside to let religion shine through like it's some sort of gift. Just like Catholics and other religious groups believe that a child is created at the time the sperm reaches the egg and that the embryo created is a gift from God.
In the case I presented, the woman, a human being of only 16, was clearly pushed to the side by her father because of his religious beliefs. The hospital told her the risks and attempted to save her life by doing so. That's the only objective way to look at abortion. If you want it, these are the risks and you take them as you see fit. If you want to die, die. If you want to live, try. But don't let something like religion/God, a tool of manipulation and scare tactics, make the decisions for you.
I made that point not to offend the thin-lined Catholic, but to try and open eyes to another view that is constantly blocked off. She responded by not responding at all.
I don't know where HB 1 is right now, but I can't believe that this piece of legislation was taken seriously for a second. If it passes, which I'm sure it won't, but if it did pass I would seriously begin to rethink the trust levels we have in this country with the state of Georgia or with any public official who believes its okay to sentence any woman who gets an abortion for any reason, whether good or bad, to death.
