Those who thought the religious right suffered defeat in 2008 oughtn’t grow too comfy. Diana Hsieh pointed me to a new abortion-ban bill in Georgia. Georgia Legislative Watch comments:
Abortion: Two pieces of legislation dealing with abortion have been pre-filed. HB 1, introduced by Rep. Bobby Franklin (R), would make abortion a crime by defining life at conception.
HR 5, filed by Rep. Martin Scott (R), is the Human Life Amendment.
As with past sessions, neither proposal stands any chance of passing. They are only mentioned here because abortion is still a hot topic.
Here is part of the text of House Bill 1:
The State of Georgia has the duty to protect all innocent life from the moment of conception until natural death. We know that life begins at conception. After nearly four decades of legal human prenatal murder, it is now abundantly clear that the practice has negatively impacted the people of this state in many ways, including economic, health, physical, psychological, emotional, and medical well-being. These, too, are areas of legitimate concern and duty of this state. The General Assembly therefore makes the following findings of fact: (1) A fetus is a person for all purposes under the laws of this state from the moment of conception…
On the basis of the claim that “life begins at conception,” Representative Franklin would declare abortion murder. However, not only is his basic argument false — life obviously precedes conception — even if it were true it would not establish the case, as Diana and I point out. The stated foundation of the abortion ban is so weak that it obviously masks Franklin’s real motivation: to impose his religious faith by force of law.