Law maintains bias surrounding abortions
In an extended end-of-the-year session on March 29, Georgia poised itself to join seven other states in adopting a “fetal pain” bill, which outlaws abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The bill is also known as the “women as livestock” bill, renamed after Rep. Terry England drew an insane parallel between calves on his farm giving birth to dead fetuses — and women in America seeking abortions.
The bill is founded on the notion that a fetus will feel pain at 20 weeks and outlaws any abortion after this point. Doctors who assist in abortions after this point could be charged with a felony and incur up to 10 years in prison. A 2005 study suggested that it is extremely unlikely that a fetus feels pain until the third trimester, going on to explain that the nervous system connections that are even required to feel pain do not begin to form until 23 to 30 weeks into the pregnancy. At 20 weeks, the nerves required to feel pain are not even there and will not exist for nearly a month.
While the original bill required any pregnancy that lasted over 20 weeks to be delivered stillborn, exceptions were pushed by the state Senate to allow for abortions in the case of fetuses which have chromosomal or congenital defects that would render the fetus unable to survive outside of the womb.
Of course, this move to not psychologically torture women by forcing them to give birth to stillborn children was met with resistance by several Republicans, including the bill’s author, Rep. Doug McKillip. However, some modicum of sanity won out. Outside of the restrictions on the fetus’s viability, all fetuses that are the result of rape or incest beyond the 20-week mark must be carried to term.
One anti-abortion protester pointed out that the bill will save “1,500 lives a year,” but whose lives are being saved? A 1989 journal article on abortion and its effects tracked 360 low-income teenagers who did and did not have abortions of unwanted pregnancies. It found that those who terminated their pregnancies were better off economically, were more likely to graduate high school and experienced no greater level of stress or anxiety than the group which carried their children to term.
The 2008 American Psychological Association’s literature review of negative psychological responses following abortions found that the primary factors are rooted in social stigma, lack of support and prior mental health. This bill, along with the language used by the individuals supporting it, help create exactly the sort of social stigma that causes psychological stress. Bills such as these, rooted in poorly judged morals and willful ignorance, do nothing to improve the quality of life of anyone and, according to the research, achieve the opposite effect.