WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS BEING CHALLENGED IN GEORGIA

BY SANIA QAZI – Next year Georgia will likely enact one of the strictest anti-abortion bills in the country, which bans women from receiving an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. This typically happens six weeks into gestation, which is before most women even know they are pregnant. While this bill in particular has received plenty of national media attention, there are many other policies just as harmful to reproductive freedom that have gone unnoticed.

In 2012, The Population Institute released a report on Reproductive Health and Rights for all 50 states. Georgia was one of the 18 states that received a D grade because of the state’s strict policies on access to contraceptives and sexual education. For example, while Georgia does mandate sex education in schools, parents can opt their children out. Most schools also mainly focus on an abstinence-only message and do not cover condom or contraceptive use. Countless studies have exposed the fact that abstinence-only education as a state policy isn’t effective at preventing teen pregnancy or curbing the spread of HIV and other STDs. This could be one of the biggest factors leading to Georgia becoming the state with the 12th highest teen pregnancy rate in the United States and also a state with more than double the national rate of HIV diagnoses for young people between the ages of 13 to 24.

Georgia also has no laws affirming the right to emergency contraceptives, which can prevent pregnancy when taken five days after intercourse. Sixteen states currently have laws that direct medical personnel to discuss options for emergency contraceptives to survivors of sexual assault, but Georgia is not one of those states. Women under the age of 17 must also receive a physician prescription to purchase Plan-B over the counter.

The state has also yet to expand Medicaid, which would cover family planning services for millions of low-income women. Family planning clinics perform the necessary duty of providing oral contraceptives and LARC (Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives) methods for women who choose them. They also provide primary care services such as diabetes screenings and mental health screenings to millions of poor and low-income women across the state. Georgia has also only allocated a measly $312,000 from the state budget to fund the 168 family planning clinics in the state. Of the 2 million women who rely on these services in Georgia, that comes out to roughly .16 cents per woman.

The state also makes it incredibly difficult for a woman to receive an abortion if she chooses to have one. She must first receive 24 hours of counseling and have parental consent before she can undergo the procedure. In 2014, there were 28 abortion-providing facilities in Georgia, but 96% of counties had no clinics that provided abortions and 58% of women lived in one of these counties. This means that low-income women in some cases must travel over 100 miles just to receive a simple procedure.

Over time, the state has slowly been adding more and more restrictions on access to reproductive healthcare. While the Fetal Heartbeat Bill would place restrictions on access and timeliness to receive abortion, advocates for reproductive rights must not only focus on the right to abortion, but should also focus on issues regarding pregnancy and STD prevention and sexual education. Protecting these rights are integral for a free and just society and one in which women have autonomy over their own bodies.