ATLANTA — A tense abortion debate has been flowing like a quiet undercurrent throughout this legislative session, and the legislative beginnings of a challenge to Roe v. Wade may emerge this week as the Georgia General Assembly wraps up its business.
Senate Bill 529 is not simply a push to make it illegal to coerce a woman to have an abortion. It’s one step in a larger effort to argue abortion law before the U.S. Supreme Court. And with President Obama expected to make liberal appointments to the court during his tenure, the clock is ticking.
The bill came from Georgia Right to Life, and members aren’t hiding their deeper intentions for it. As written, the bill threatens doctors with jail time if they perform an abortion knowing the woman was pushed to get that abortion because of the race or sex of the child. Supporters point to significantly higher abortion rates among blacks and other minorities and advertise the bill as a halt to genocide.
But when some legislators pushed last week to strip the bill of its references to race or sex and simply outlaw all coerced abortions in Georgia, they were rebuked by anti-abortion advocates. The race and sex language is key, Georgia Right to Life members said, because it makes the bill deal with protected classes of citizens.
That sets up a court challenge.
The debate has divided the Republican majority at the Capitol somewhat, and it has pitted anti-abortion advocates against the new leadership team in the Georgia House of Representatives, led by Speaker David Ralston.
‘Miraculous’ vote
After this bill was thwarted in the House earlier this year, Georgia Right to Life helped push Senate Bill 529 through the Senate.
It moved to the House and was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee, a committee full of attorneys known for protracted, technical questioning. The bill sat in the committee for some time without action.
Then, last week, the push came to strip out the language needed to challenge Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that set federal regulations on abortions, largely taking the issue out of states’ control.
Committee Chairman Wendell Willard offered the substitute language.
“I had issues, personally, about the constitutionality of what they were doing,” said Willard, R-Sandy Springs. “I don’t think (challenging Roe) is really what we ought to be getting into.”
Willard said he talked to Ralston before offering the new language but added: “I can’t say the speaker was the one guiding it.” Ralston’s office said the speaker was merely “letting the committee process work.”
Anti-abortion advocates disagreed, making it known that Ralston and the House leadership were thwarting their bill. Legislation this big rarely goes anywhere without the speaker of the House, or, in the Senate, the lieutenant governor, being involved. And without the race and sex language, Georgia Right to Life said it would take an odd position: It would be against a bill restricting coerced abortions.
But Willard’s changes were voted down, narrowly, in an overcrowded committee room last week. The meeting was full of parliamentary procedure as Democrats tried to amend the bill, or kill it altogether, and Republicans maneuvered on both sides of the issue.
In the end the bill was “miraculously voted out” of the committee with the race and sex language intact, Georgia Right to Life’s legislative director, Mike Griffin, told supporters in an e-mailed message.
“God used the legal maneuvering of Representative Mark Hatfield to get the original bill passed,” Griffin wrote. “God confused both the Democrats and the Republicans who were trying to stop the original bill.”
The next step
With the Judiciary Committee’s vote, Senate Bill 529 moved to the House Rules Committee.
That committee sets the House’s debate calendar and will decide whether the bill makes it to the House floor for a vote during the last week of this legislative session. That could happen as soon as Tuesday, but the committee is a choke point the House leadership can use to keep bills it doesn’t like from seeing the floor.
“We must pray for (Rules) Chairman Bill Hembree as he seeks to move the bill to a vote in the House,” Griffin wrote in his e-mail. “We must pray for Speaker David Ralston that he will not block the bill from being voted out of the Rules Committee.”
Griffin also asked supporters to call Ralston and other legislators to lobby for the bill.
Ralston’s office wouldn’t comment on the bill’s chances and generally doesn’t comment on the likelihood that any particular bill will clear the rules committee and see the floor.
To contact writer Travis Fain, call 361-2702.
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