2021 Georgia Code
Title 31 - Health
Chapter 9B - Physician's Obligation in Performance of Abortions

- Ga. L. 2012, p. 575, § 1/HB 954, not codified by the General Assembly, provides that: "The General Assembly makes the following findings:

"(1) At least by 20 weeks after fertilization there is substantial evidence that an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain;

"(2) There is substantial evidence that, by 20 weeks after fertilization, unborn children seek to evade certain stimuli in a manner which in an infant or an adult would be interpreted as a response to pain;

"(3) Anesthesia is routinely administered to unborn children who have developed 20 weeks or more past fertilization who undergo prenatal surgery;

"(4) Even before 20 weeks after fertilization, unborn children have been observed to exhibit hormonal stress responses to painful stimuli. Such responses were reduced when pain medication was administered directly to such unborn children;

"(4.1) Probable gestational age is an estimate made to assume the closest time to which the fertilization of a human ovum occurred and does not purport to be an exact diagnosis of when such fertilization occurred; and

"(5) It is the purpose of the State of Georgia to assert a compelling state interest in protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage at which substantial medical evidence indicates that they are capable of feeling pain."

- For article on the 2012 enactment of this chapter, see 29 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 253 (2012). For comment, "Under Kemp's Eye: Analyzing the Constitutionality of the Heartbeat Restriction in Georgia's LIFE Act and its Potential Impact on Abortion Law," see 71 Mercer L. Rev. 417 (2019).

RESEARCH REFERENCES

ALR.

- Use of Planned Parenthood v. Casey's "Large-Fraction” test in review of abortion regulations, 38 A.L.R.7th Art. 6.