By TaRessa Stovall

The anti-abortion movement, which made recent headlines for controversial billboards targeting African-American women in Georgia, suffered a setback on April 30 when Bill 1155, referred to as “The OB/GYN Criminalization and Racial Discrimination Act” failed to move forward in the Georgia House of Representatives after having been passed by the Senate.

As Jill Nelson noted in “Are Anti-Abortion Groups Targeting Black Women?” for TheDefendersOnline, Bill 1155, which had earlier been passed by the Senate, would have outlawed abortion for reasons of gender selection and racial discrimination, and allowed women who are “coerced” to have an abortion to file charges against the abortion provider.

Jodi Jacobson, Editor-in-Chief of Reality Check, wrote that on April 30, “the so-called “OB/BYN Criminalization and Racial Discrimination Act,” died in the Rules Committee of the Georgia House of Representatives on the last day of Georgia’s legislative session.” Jacobson cited a news release from SisterSong, SPARK and SisterLove, which stated: “After more than there days of attempting to negotiate with the ultra-conservative right-to-life lobby, the Speaker of the House David Ralston was unable to convince them to support a more reasonable bill. The hard-line and … moderate Republicans could not united on the bill. This allowed the Democrats to filibuster. Essentially, it was the splintering that caused the bill’s turnaround in lacking unity.”

Nelson’s piece for TheDefendersOnline explained that “On March 26, the judiciary committee of the Georgia Senate passed its own bill, SB 529, the Coercion and Pre-Natal Non-Discrimination Ban, which makes it a felony to encourage a woman to have an abortion. The bill outlaws abortion for reasons of gender selection, racial discrimination, and allows women who are ‘coerced’ to file charges against the abortion provider. Under the bill that penalizes doctors for third party actions, a mother who tells her daughter, “Don’t get pregnant and bring a baby home,” could precipitate criminal charges against the doctor who provided an abortion.”

An April 30 story in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that, “A revision of a controversial abortion bill was thought to have gotten a big final push on Thursday from House Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge). The legislation, however, never got to the floor. Ralston told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that an abortion bill that was before the House, SB 529, was unacceptable as written. He proposed an alternative he thought was more constitutionally sound and not designed to encourage a court fight.

“It has been at least five years since abortion was a dominant issue during a legislative session. In February, Georgia Right to Life began a push for legislation that would make it a 10-year felony for a physician to perform an abortion if the patient discloses that she is having the procedure because of objections to the race or gender of the fetus. It also would make it a crime for the physician to perform an abortion if the patient were coerced into ending a pregnancy. The original bill, HB 1155, never made it out of House committee. Supporters in the Senate, however, picked up the mantle and in late March passed SB 529.”

TaRessa Stovall is Managing Editor of TheDefendersOnline.