Ossoff Press

Georgia’s abortion ban forced a Georgia woman to wait until the verge of death to get health care.

Today, during an oversight event with U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff, Callie Beale Harper detailed how restrictions under Georgia’s abortion ban denied her medical care and forced her to travel out of state for care, putting her own life and her daughter’s life at risk.

“Georgia’s six-week abortion ban made it impossible for me to receive the care that I needed, and my daughter and I almost died because of it,” Callie Beale Haper said.

Pregnant with twins, Beale Harper said she was denied urgently needed medical care after being told that carrying both twins to term would put her own life and the healthy twin’s life at risk and that she would have to seek medical care in another state because of restrictions under Georgia’s law. After four weeks of battling logistical and financial hurdles, Beale Harper received care in New York, but the delay in her care, caused by Georgia’s law, led to severe complications, she said.

“I remember screaming and writhing in pain. I visited the emergency room ten times in ten weeks after that, sometimes being admitted, before I prematurely gave birth to my daughter at 27 weeks. And I endured this largely on my own while my husband was forced to continue working so that we could both keep our health insurance,” Beale Harper continued. “The trauma, the fear, the pain—it was unbearable. The sheer terror of not knowing if I would survive, and if my daughter would survive—all of it was a direct consequence of a law that failed to recognize the urgent realities of maternal health care.”

“Laws like Georgia’s do not protect women—they endanger us. They force us to suffer needlessly, to scramble for care across state lines, to endure financial and emotional burdens on top of medical crises,” Beale Harper said.

As Dr. Suchitra Chandrasekaran, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, explained, Beale Harper’s risk of complications would have been significantly lower if she had been able to receive care in Georgia when it was medically indicated.

Last year, as Chair of the Senate Human Rights Subcommittee, Sen. Ossoff convened two public hearings at which Georgia women and Georgia OBGYNs testified to the harmful impacts of Georgia’s abortion ban.

In July, OB-GYN doctors testified that women in Georgia are being denied care during miscarriages and gone into sepsis because of Georgian’s abortion ban, which they testified has hindered OGBYNs’ ability to do their jobs and could put them at risk of prosecution.

In September, two patients and an OBGYN testified in Atlanta that the State’s abortion ban is forcing Georgia women to continue high-risk and nonviable pregnancies.