Where they stand: Bottoms, Jackson on abortion
It’s been just over four years since Georgia’s abortion law, also known as the “heartbeat bill,” took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court ended nearly 50 years of federal abortion protections.
The law bans nearly all abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected, which experts say happens at about six weeks of pregnancy, before many people know they are pregnant.
Reproductive rights advocates and the state have been locked in a yearslong court battle over the law, which was reinstated by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2024 after a lower court attempted to block it.
Debate over Georgia’s restrictions became more heated after ProPublica reported on the deaths of 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman and 41-year-old Candi Miller, both of whom died from abortion-related complications in 2022 shortly after Georgia’s law took effect.
The issue remains a stark dividing line between Georgia Democrats and Republicans. Here’s where candidates for governor, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and healthcare CEO Rick Jackson, stand on abortion.
Jackson
According to Jackson’s campaign, the Republican candidate supports Georgia’s abortion law as it stands — which includes the exemptions for rape, incest and saving the life of the mother if medical complications arise.
Earlier in the campaign, Jackson raised eyebrows after a recording surfaced of a conversation between him and a voter at a campaign stop in Walton County in which he appeared to be open to additional limits.
The voter pressed Jackson over concerns that doctors could “fudge” records to claim a pregnancy was earlier than it was and questioned the law’s rape exception, which the voter opposed.
Jackson sympathized with the voter but has since reiterated his support of the law as written.
Bottoms
Bottoms, the Democratic candidate for governor, campaigns on repealing the state’s abortion law and restoring Georgia’s rules to the previous standard under Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that protected an individual’s right to an abortion until a fetus becomes viable outside of the womb.
In a statement, Bottoms called the decision to receive an abortion “deeply personal” for women.
“Georgia’s current abortion ban has created dangerous barriers to care at a time when too many women in our state are already dying from preventable pregnancy-related complications,” she said.
The former Atlanta mayor frames her stance on the issue against the backdrop of Georgia’s high maternal mortality rates — particularly for Black women.
If elected, Bottoms said she will also focus on expanding maternal healthcare in maternal health deserts. That means putting additional resources toward access to prenatal and postpartum care and strengthening Georgia’s pipeline of OB-GYNs, midwives, doulas and community health workers.