Texas Abortion Case Before Supreme Court Could Affect Ga.

Texas says these requirements protect women’s health, but abortion rights advocates argue they just force clinics to close.

Bianca Campbell, a pro-abortion rights advocate in Atlanta who works with Access Reproductive Care Southeast, said a decision upholding the Texas laws could send more women to Georgia clinics.

“We already get people from as far out as Mississippi,” said Campbell, “and as far north as Tennessee and sometimes even Virginia, and we expect more people from Texas to come in as a result of that.”

Georgia is currently one of the last places in the South where women can get a late-term abortion, and Campbell said Atlanta clinics are nearly at capacity serving out-of-state patients.

The Georgia Life Alliance, an anti-abortion group, said it’s awaiting the high court ruling to see if it can promote more clinic requirements, like the ones Texas imposed, in Georgia.

“We definitely view regulating Georgia’s abortion industry as something that is needed,” said Emily Matson, the executive director of the organization. “But the extent to which it can be done is what this case is going to impact.”

Matson said her group views Georgia’s current restrictions on abortion as limited and unevenly enforced.

The Supreme Court justices’ decision in the Texas case isn’t expected for months.