Georgia hosts federal subcommittee on abortion access as issue remains of top concern for voters

Abortion and reproductive rights remain a top issue for many voters going into the November election. 

So far, Georgia Democrats have largely echoed more widespread calls by the party to reinstate nationwide abortion protections. That's also expected to be a huge part of the campaign of now likely presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who has visited the state to speak on the issue before. 

• RELATED: Kamala Harris speaks in Savannah on abortion rights, bringing VP's new campaign push to the South

Aside from full bans on abortion, Georgia has one of the most restrictive laws in the country, prohibiting abortions past around six weeks of pregnancy, or when lawmakers say ultrasounds can detect a so-called “fetal heartbeat.” 

Testimony highlights uncertainty

On Tuesday, Georgia U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff hosted a hearing that saw Georgia-based obstetrician gynecologists testify that Georgia’s abortion law limits their ability to practice reproductive medicine. 

While Ossoff peppered the physicians with questions, the physicians presented quandaries of their own. 

Each physician called Georgia’s law confusing, two years after its implementation, and spoke of the “gray territory” that physician Suchitra Chandrasekaran said defines most cases where fetal abnormalities are detected. 

“The majority of our situations fall into ‘We think this would be the prognosis,’” Chandrasekaran said. “‘This is the likely situation to happen. This is likely the outcome.’ That doesn't get covered.”

Georgia’s law only protects abortions after six weeks in cases of “medical futility,” but relies on the “reasonable medical judgment” of physicians in those cases. Chandrasekaran said that puts the responsibility on physicians to make decisions for patients about a pregnancy that may or may not result in life threatening complications after birth. 

“It is hard to predict that futility,” Chandrasekaran said. “Some of these babies can stay in a hospital for even a year, up to post-birth, just undergoing surgeries and undergoing care. So what does that put upon that child, that family? That, again, is not covered in that medically futile.”

Claire Bartlett is director of the Georgia Life Alliance, which promotes a “pro-life culture” and supports Georgia’s abortion law. In response to the hearing, she said that she's worked with parents who moved forward with pregnancies that could have been medically futile. 

"They chose life," Bartlett wrote to Georgia Public Broadcasting. "For the majority of these parents, the child’s diagnosis was either wrong or the child lived, some for only days, some longer and are still with us. ... Those parents are thankful for the time with their children." 

But in other cases, a mothers life could be at risk in a pregnancy. Some present with conditions that make giving birth risky, like autoimmune diseases, high blood pressure or even age. There isn’t good data on maternal morbidity nationwide, but it’s estimated that tens of thousands of pregnant people experience complicated pregnancies every year. 

But risk isn’t protected under Georgia’s law. 

“When does the law say I can intervene? And none of us know the answer to that,” said Nisha Verma, another physician who spoke at the hearing. “And so navigating this environment is incredibly scary and confusing.” 

Verma said she has also seen that uncertainty affect the management of miscarriages. While so-called “spontaneous abortions” are protected under Georgia’s law, Verma said she’s seen doctors turn away sick patients until a miscarriage is absolutely certain. 

“We are having to wait until later in that process, until they get sicker, until they have more bleeding, until they have an infection,” Verma said.

How Georgia's law has changed the landscape 

A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization self-proclaimed "to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights worldwide," shows thousands of Georgians have traveled out of state to recieve abortions since the law changed. 

Included in that interstate travel are North Carolina, which allows abortions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, and Florida, which up until May, allowed abortions until 15 weeks of pregnancy. 

Public opinion polls show a deep divide between Republicans and Democrats regarding abortion access since laws changed across the country following the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade. However, a recent poll of over 22,000 people showed a smaller divide between parties over whether abortion should be totally illegal or not. 

Bartlett with the Georgia Life Alliance, which regularly requests its supporters organize against abortion access, called the hearing hosted by Ossoff a “political stunt.” Nearly two years after Georgia’s law was put into place, Bartlett said instead she’d like to see a celebration for the “lives saved because of the LIFE Act." 

According to provisional data from the Georgia Department of Public Health, there were 6,641 fewer abortions provided by clinicians in 2023 compared to the previous year, though the Guttmacher study includes data on medication abortions and estimates a slightly smaller gap. The DPH data for last year is subject to change. 

From 2019 to before the passage of the law, the state was averaging about 33,000 abortions a year, according to the DPH data.