Georgia D.A. Says He Would Prosecute Women Who Get Abortions

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/george-d-a-says-he-will-prosecute-women-who-get-abortions-836145/

Georgia D.A. Says He Would Prosecute Women Who Get Abortions
“Women need to be made aware,” says Douglas County District Attorney Ryan Leonard. “The only way to be 100% sure you’re not prosecuted under it is not to have an abortion.”

Douglas County District Attorney Ryan Leonard told Law.com’s “Daily Report” on Wednesday that women in Georgia should prepare for the possibility that they could be criminally prosecuted for having an abortion if the law signed by Governor Brian Kemp takes effect as planned in January of next year.

“If you look at it from purely a legal standpoint, if you take the life of another human being, it’s murder,” Leonard told the outlet. Leonard is the first of the state’s district attorneys to declare that interpretation of the law publicly. Others, including the district attorneys for DeKalb and Macon counties, have said they would not seek to prosecute women under the new law.

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Whatever legislators intended, Leonard said, is irrelevant at this point; district attorneys like himself are guided by the law as written, and the LIFE Act is written in a way that anticipates the criminal prosecutions of mothers. Leonard pointed to exceptions written into the law, including one clause that exempts from prosecution any pregnant woman who “reasonably believed that an abortion was the only way to prevent a medical emergency.”

“They wouldn’t outline exceptions or exemptions if they didn’t anticipate criminal prosecution,” Leonard said. “Based on my review, the only crime it could fall under is murder. Nothing else criminalizes this conduct.”