Georgia could face a reckoning over its recent abortion legislation, according to a former Democratic candidate for the state’s lieutenant governor.
Sarah Riggs Amico, who is seriously considering making her own Senate bid in the state, noted on Monday that Democrats won control of 14 Republican-held seats during the 2016 elections.
“I would say this to Democrats here in the state, I know this is hard but there will be a comeuppance for the Georgia GOP in the 2020 elections,” Sarah Riggs Amico told Hill.TV.
“That’s what happens when you don’t do the will of the people, you do the will of a very small fringe of your party,” she added, referring to the state’s “fetal heart bill,” which was signed into law by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) last month.
Amico said that the legislation that bans all abortions without exception once a fetus has a detectable heartbeat will only make efforts to expand health care across across the state even more difficult.
“It will be harder to recruit physicians, we will see women die,” she added. “We will see it a lot harder to access health care, particularly in the rural areas of our state.”
Abortion has become a top issue ahead of the 2020 election as a number of states like Alabama and Georgia move forward on some of the most restrictive abortion bans in U.S. history.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a 2020 presidential hopeful, said over the weekend that President Trump has “started a war on America’s women” in response to laws being being pushed through several state legislatures limiting access to abortion.
“This is nothing short of an all-out assault on women’s reproductive freedom, an effort to take away our basic human rights and civil rights,” Gillibrand told CBS’s “Face The Nation.”
President Trump and Republicans, meanwhile, have distanced themselves a highly restrictive Alabama law that essentially outlaws abortion. The legislation allows for no exceptions for rape and incest, making the procedure legal only if the mother’s life is in danger.
“As most people know, and for those who would like to know, I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions – Rape, Incest and protecting the Life of the mother,” – the same position taken by Ronald Reagan,” Trump said in a series of tweets on Saturday.
“We must stick together and Win … for Life in 2020,” he added.
—Tess Bonn
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