Georgia Bill Repealing 20-Week Ban and Amending Woman’s Right to Know Act (SB 37)

SB 37 would have amended the Georgia Pain Capable Unborn Child Act (HB 954) and the definition of “medical emergency” in the Woman’s Right to Know Act (Ga. Code Ann. § 31-9A-2.)

SB 37 would have prohibited an abortion after the second trimester unless necessary in the physician’s “best clinical judgment” to preserve the life or health of the woman.

In comparison, HB 954 prohibits abortion at 20-weeks’ gestation unless three physicians certify that in their “reasonable medical judgment,” an abortion is necessary to avert a woman’s death or serious risk of physical impairment. HB 954 says that a physician cannot consider whether a woman has a mental or emotional condition, or might engage in self-harm in his or her assessment of whether an abortion is necessary.

SB 37 would have repealed these provisions of HB 954, and would have permitted a physician to use his or her “best clinical judgment” to determine whether an abortion is necessary to preserve a woman’s life irrespective of whether a woman has a mental or emotional condition, or might engage in self-harm.

SB 37 would have also amended the definition of “medical emergency” in the Woman’s Right to Know Act.

The current definition of medical emergency is “any condition which, in reasonable medical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant female as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial or irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman or death of the unborn child. No such condition shall be deemed to exist if it is based on a diagnosis or claim of a mental or emotional condition of the pregnant woman or that the pregnant woman will purposefully engage in conduct which she intends to result in her death or in substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

SB 37 would have defined “medical emergency” to mean “any condition which, on the basis of the physician’s good faith clinical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant female as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial or irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”

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