After more than three decades as a political force setting the state’s anti-abortion agenda, Georgia Right to Life was cut off from its national affiliate Saturday, in favor of a newly formed group vowing a less confrontational approach.
The board of National Right to Life voted at its annual meeting outside Washington to accept the Georgia Life Alliance as its state affiliate, a move that is shaking up the Georgia political scene less than two months before a slew of heated Republican primary elections.
Georgia Right to Life in 2000 adopted a policy not to allow abortion in cases of rape or incest. The policy led GRTL to vociferously oppose a U.S. House bill last year that would have made abortion illegal after 20 weeks, with exceptions made for rape and incest as a way to get broader support. The Georgia group’s move was in conflict with National Right to Life, which called the bill its top priority.
“By its own actions, Georgia Right to Life ruptured its relationship with National Right to Life,” said Carol Tobias, president of the national group. “Until the Supreme Court allows broad protections for unborn children, we work to protect as many children as possible by passing the strongest possible laws at the state and federal level. That legislative strategy has helped save millions of lives — and continues to save lives today.”
Georgia Right to Life vowed not to change course and made no apology for its tactics, which often ruffle feathers under the Gold Dome in Atlanta and on the campaign trail. Vice President Mike Griffin pointed to GRTL-endorsed candidates’ success in primaries and the fact that all eight statewide constitutional officers support the group’s position of allowing abortion only to save the life of the mother.
“We’re very passionate about maintaining a true sanctity of human life ethic,” Griffin said. “And the reason we are very passionate about that is human life is very sacred. When the standard is lowered — or if the standard is ever lowered — people die.”
The next steps for the upstart organization are undefined. Georgia Life Alliance has an interim board that includes radio hosts Erick Erickson and Martha Zoller. Also affiliated with the group are Suwanee’s Kristin Radtke, a former Family Research Council staffer, and Lance Cooper, an attorney who battled GRTL during a run for state Senate from west Cobb County.
The entire group will meet soon to lay out a strategy.
Zoller, who was endorsed by GRTL when she ran for Congress unsuccessfully in 2012, said she did not see GRTL as a foe, but that some of its supporters had been “pretty vicious” since news broke last week of Georgia Life Alliance’s challenge.
“To me, that doesn’t help move the ball down the road as far as what we’re trying to accomplish,” Zoller said. “I see it as a stylistic difference. I don’t see it as a compromise. I see it as another voice.”
Zoller said she was not speaking for the board, but she believes the new group will not endorse candidates and will be more focused on policy.
In a recent blog post on the conservative site RedState, Erickson laid out a few policy planks for the Georgia Life Alliance that go beyond abortion, including privatizing Georgia's adoption and foster care systems, and advocating for school-choice legislation.
Atlanta Tea Party President Debbie Dooley said the new group’s members are “pawns of the Republican establishment” seeking to swing key primary races.
“For us, this is not about whether it’s pro-life or about the exceptions or any of that,” Dooley said. “It’s about the sleazy campaign tactics that the chamber of commerce Republicans are using to defeat tea party candidates and challengers.”
Emily Matson, an attorney who presented the Georgia Life Alliance’s case, said the new group will defer to the judgment of National Right to Life on all federal legislation and federal political candidates.
“The misinformation that has alluded to political interests in the formation of GLA is categorically false,” Matson wrote in an email. “The U.S. Senate primary has not been the impetus or the reason for the creation of this new organization.”
In the U.S. Senate primary, GRTL endorsed U.S. Rep. Paul Broun after he broke with nearly all Republicans to vote against the 20-week abortion bill. The group also has a long, antagonistic history with former Secretary of State Karen Handel, another candidate in the primary, who has sparred with GRTL over abortion exceptions and in-vitro fertilization.
“I’m saddened that those of us that believe in life are fighting amongst ourselves,” Broun said Saturday after a candidates’ forum on ethics and morality at a Baptist church in Rincon, near Savannah.
Broun said his GRTL endorsement will still carry the same weight: “I don’t think their standing amongst Georgians is going to be diminished one bit.”
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