Prosecutors In Georgia, Other States Push Back On Enforcing New Abortion Laws

|

May 30th, 2019

Prosecutors in Georgia and other states say they will not enforce new abortion restrictions passed by their states. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, shown earlier this year, said he’s received angry calls from some residents since announcing that he would not prosecute doctors for any violations of Utah’s ban on abortion after 18 weeks. Gill’s county includes the state’s only two abortion clinics.

Rick Bowmer / Associated Press file

New state abortion laws likely to become bogged down in legal challenges face another potential obstacle: prosecutors who refuse to enforce them.The Associated Press reached out to nearly two dozen district attorneys across seven states, and several said they would not file criminal charges against doctors who violate the laws. Even a few who left open potentially charging doctors said they would not prosecute women for having an abortion, which some legal observers say could be a possibility under Georgia’s law.

“I am never going to enforce a law that’s unconstitutional, and furthermore, especially not one that targets women and girls,” said David Cooke, chief prosecutor in Macon, Georgia, about 80 miles southeast of Atlanta.

The four district attorneys who said they would not enforce the laws at all cited the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, saying their states’ abortion laws clearly conflict with that decision. The new laws, which are not yet in effect, take aim at Roe in hopes that a new conservative majority on the court will overturn it.

Related

Top Stories