In the last remaining days of the legislative session, the Georgia General Assembly is considering a bill to effectively criminalize abortion in our state.
While there are “two sides” to this hot button issue, one thing all reasonable people can agree on is that our legislature could not possibly have chosen a more divisive piece of legislation to debate this year.
In fact when the bill was taken up by the Senate after being passed in the House, the media reported, "so fraught has been the debate, that lawmakers had the committee room checked for bombs before Thursday's Senate committee hearing" (http://www.ajc.com/news/state—regional-govt—politics/georgia-heartbeat-bill-spurs-strong-debate-about-abortion/J4jW7DPuDlwJ0QcD0xPPoN/).
I was at that same Senate hearing, and I was impressed to see nearly 200 women and men show up in the middle of a work day to hear a bill debated for hours into the evening (the room was also packed when the House committee heard the bill, but there was less public notice for that meeting.)
I was impressed, because it is my job to get “regular” women to come to the State Capitol during the session to make their voices heard in policy debates. And I can tell you it’s an incredibly difficult thing to do considering all the problems with parking and navigating the building, dealing with the crowds, and the notorious last-minute time changes for meetings (not to even mention bomb sweeps).
And it is a particularly challenging thing for working mothers to do, when they may need to pick up children after school or bring their young children with them to the Capitol.
As I stood among that crowd, surrounded by the stressed-out State patrol, I began to imagine…”what could our state achieve if our leaders chose a different path? What if they chose to unify us to work together toward something we could all agree on – something that would improve the lives of children in Georgia and support our current and future mothers?”
Imagine if we had 200 regular people taking the time to come to the Capitol to support a bill to increase access to affordable child care, give pregnant women reasonable accommodations in the workplace, or to provide OB-GYN care within a short drive of rural expectant mothers.
In a state with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, and the dubious distinction of being one of the worst states for working moms in the country (https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-for-working-moms/3565/), I began to realize this bill is ultimately about opportunity cost.
Opportunity cost is defined as the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.
Our legislature is spending precious time, energy and citizen engagement efforts (the most precious commodity of all) battling it out over an extreme and divisive bill. A bill that is purposefully designed to lead to protracted and expensive (to taxpayers) high-profile legal battles (https://www.gpbnews.org/post/how-georgias-heartbeat-abortion-bill-aimed-supreme-court).
The question is, while our legislators are spending our collective time, energy and goodwill toward one another doing that, what are they not doing instead?
For example, as an alternative, what could the legislature be doing to make our state more attractive to businesses and to economically empower women workers who are breadwinners for their families?
Unfortunately, just like the religious freedom bills introduced in the past couple of legislative sessions, the very tenor of the debate around this bill is damaging to the state’s business environment.
When the male sponsor of the bill states publicly on a regular basis that he wishes he hadn’t been forced to include an exception for rape and incest victims – I wonder how callous that sounds to women business leaders here and around the country?
Or when we hear that OB-GYNs will be less likely to practice in the state, how alienating is that to talented young women graduates considering staying here or moving here to start their careers and families?
Or what about women entrepreneurs who may want to start businesses here in Georgia? Will they have to worry about how to handle employees reporting fetuses as dependents, paying higher insurance costs to cover increased malpractice expenses for doctors, or even dealing with female workers facing criminal charges for trying to end a pregnancy?
While we have many differences, I have found that when women come together to collaborate there is absolutely no stopping us. But when we are divided along bitter partisan lines, then progress stalls. The opportunity cost of House Bill 481 is tremendous and unacceptable.
At a second hearing held at 8 a.m. on a Monday morning, the Senate passed the bill out of committee. Right after the vote, I overheard a young woman who was there to voice her concern turn to the woman next to her and say matter-of-factly, “I’ve got to get to work.”
Women are voters, community leaders, caregivers, business owners and economic drivers in Georgia. I think it’s fair to say that no matter where we stand personally on the issue of abortion, we all want state legislators to work as hard as we do.
My message to the Georgia General Assembly after watching the sad proceedings of the past couple of weeks is this – please stop playing divisive political games and let’s get to work solving the very real problems affecting women and families in our state.
Helen Robinson is director of advocacy for the YWCA of Greater Atlanta, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to improving the health, safety, and economic empowerment of all women in Georgia.
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