ATLANTA (AP) — Abortion, sex education and transgender counseling for youth have all had mixed success on the Georgia Legislature’s agenda over the past year, and while lawmakers are given another chance to address these issues in the session beginning Monday, it is unclear how far they will come to go.
Republican leaders have not signaled a strong appetite for such measures in a politically competitive state. Gov. Brian Kemp last year endorsed some causes, like banning transgender boys and girls from playing on school athletic teams that match their gender identity, during the heat of a GOP primary in which Kemp tried not to be outplayed.
There is also a slim Republican majority in the State House, where the party will hold 101 of 180 seats after two special elections are completed. Each bill requires 91 votes to pass the chamber. And even some Senate Republicans, usually the cockpit of Georgia’s social-conservative legislature, are signaling little interest in such struggles.
The Georgia Supreme Court in November reinstated the state’s ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. The Supreme Court left the ban in place while considering an appeal from a lower court that overturned the law.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney had ruled that the state’s abortion ban was invalid because it was a precedent set by the US Supreme Court under Roe when it was signed into law in 2019. v. Wade and another ruling had allowed abortions well beyond six weeks. Lawmakers could snuff out the appeal by re-enacting the law, but appear to be content to await the Supreme Court’s decision for now.
But there could still be abortion policies focused on abortion pills. A bill that failed in the closing moments of session last year would have required a woman to be personally examined by a Georgia doctor before the doctor could prescribe abortion pills. It is part of a nationwide push by anti-abortion groups to stop doctors from mailing abortion pills after telemedicine consultations.
Passing this legislation is the number one goal for Georgia’s anti-abortion forces this year. The urgency only increased after Tuesday, when the US Food and Drug Administration passed a rule making it easier for pharmacies to dispense the pills in person and online.
“The abortion industry is shifting a complex, emotional medical decision to a mail delivery service, removing the doctor from the equation,” the Georgia Life Alliance said in a statement.
Abortion advocates want lawmakers to stay away from it. “The abortion pill is a safe and effective way to expand access to abortion,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia said this week.
Transgender children are also likely to be the subject of legislation, although a 2021 Georgia bill making the provision of certain surgeries or drugs a crime got nowhere. Lawmakers in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona and Tennessee have passed legislation banning some treatments and surgeries for transgender minors over the past two years, though courts have blocked Alabama and Arkansas laws. Officials in Texas and Florida acted without laws.
Supporters of these laws have said allowing children this type of treatment means that allowing children this type of treatment means child abuse, while opponents say the restrictions ruthlessly violate the rights of parents and children, criminalize medical care, further marginalize transgender children and a constitute discriminatory violation of the US Constitution.
There is also a possibility of renewed controversy over sex education and what teachers can say about gender identity and sexual orientation in the classroom. Georgia’s parents can opt out of sex education for their children, a right underscored in last year’s Parents’ Bill. But some parent groups want to make sex education an elective.
Meanwhile, Georgia’s largest school district — Gwinnett County — is considering a new sex education curriculum that leverages the state’s current emphasis on sex abstinence while teaching more about consent, birth control, and gender and sexual identity.
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