Perdue Urges Abortion Ban in Georgia, Calls on Kemp to Hold Special Session if Roe Is Overturned

DULUTH, GA - MARCH 29: Republican Gubernatorial candidate David Perdue speaks at a campaig
Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
Ashley Oliver

Former Sen. David Perdue called on Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday to join Perdue in vowing to hold a special session to ban all abortion in Georgia if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Perdue, who is hoping to unseat Kemp in the state’s Republican gubernatorial primary race, said he would go further than the state’s current “heartbeat” bill, which Kemp signed in 2019 but that is currently held up in court, to instead push to institute a full ban on abortion.

Perdue’s call comes after Politico released a leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision on Monday that would overturn the decades-old Roe decision, which had ruled that access to abortions was constitutional at a federal level.

“Bonnie and I believe that every child is a gift from God. Any ruling from the Supreme Court that would save innocent lives would be an historic milestone,” Perdue said in an initial statement Tuesday. “If I were Governor when this ruling was issued, I would immediately call the legislature back into a special session to ban abortion in Georgia.”

Perdue’s abortion ban proposal, which does not at this point specify exceptions in the case of rape or incest, is more stringent than the current six-week ban Kemp signed, which specifies exceptions in the cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother being in danger.

Kemp’s bill, called the LIFE Act, is stalled in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and is awaiting the Supreme Court’s forthcoming final decision to move forward, as detailed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Kemp, who is also fervently pro-life, signed the bill into law after it just barely made it through the Georgia House, by one vote, in 2019. That narrow margin suggests Perdue’s proposal would face similar and likely insurmountable pushback if introduced in a special legislative session.

When the draft majority opinion from the Supreme Court leaked — something that has never occurred in modern history while a case was still pending — Kemp put out a statement reiterating his pro-life views and agreed with Chief Justice John Roberts’ directive for an investigation into the leak.

Kemp’s campaign added in a statement provided to Breitbart News on Thursday following Perdue’s special session call that “the Governor remains focused on defending the strongest pro-life bill in the country, Georgia’s Heartbeat Bill, which passed by one vote in the legislature and was signed into law during his first year in office.”

Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.

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