Georgia Life Act Has a Pulse, and It Beats Steady

“The larger issues with H.B. 481, such as the constitutionality of the timeframe for an abortion, the extent to which the law imposes an undue burden on a mother, or the attribution of personhood to an unborn fetus, have regrettably been conflated with false claims about mothers receiving abortions being prosecuted under Georgia law.”

The pulse of Georgia’s new abortion law, House Bill 481, beats steady despite lamentations from its opponents. Headlines have raised concerns about whether women face prosecution after obtaining an abortion in Georgia, now that the state’s Assembly has recognized natural personhood for the unborn. This dispute, however, reveals distresses that extend far beyond the passions of the legislation. It invites questions about the shirking of prosecutorial responsibility and the vapidity of legal pundits’ narrow-minded discourse.

Politics has no place in prosecutorial decision-making. In fact, as delineated in a past Merion West column, the presence of political bias in prosecutors’ offices generates significant Constitutional concerns. Prosecutors are required by their oaths,  professional standards, and statutes to enforce the law. Commentators have noted that vigilantly protecting the innocent is as much a constitutional mandate for prosecutors as is the requirement to refrain from seeking false convictions.

And prosecutors or activists who want to take issue with H.B. 481 should have the fortitude to author an article and subject their thoughts to intellectual and academic scrutiny. Hiding behind reporters and sound bites only serves to undermine the credibility of any position they might choose to espouse and does the very public they claim to represent a tremendous disservice

Instead of focusing on boycotts and hyperbole, Georgia civil rights and privacy advocates should, accordingly, be equally concerned that some of its elected prosecutors have vocalized their abject refusal to enforce a law that clearly protects a distinct class of person who, before H.B. 481, were politically powerless: the living unborn. Worse yet, like the protests to H.B. 481, these statements by prosecutors do not show an understanding of established law.